Star Fox: The War Within
by Irish Redd
Summary: A diplomatic failure has sent waves of dissent tearing through the system, with consequences that reach much further than anyone could possibly imagine. Trapped within this politcal crisis, Star Fox is tasked with a grave new job. Halt the march of war.
1. Part I Chapter 1: Return

Foreword:

Alright; before I begin, I gotta say a few things for clarification. But first, I should probably say that none of the following is absolutely necessary to read the story, so if you really don't want to bother yourself, then skip ahead to the actual writing.

This _is _my first fanfic; I don't mean that as an excuse, but rather just as something that seems relevant to say somewhere in the Author's Notes. So…there's that.

I already have the next several chapters written, so for at least a few weeks expect updates fairly rapidly; like, once a week or so, providing y'all want them. And speaking of reviews (kinda), I appreciate any and all feedback, but I prefer the kind that has a point. In other words, I'd rather have a "This story sucks _because_…" than a "This story sucks." Same thing with the positive reviews, although I don't really expect too many of those anytime soon.

And as far as the models and tech and stuff go, I based them off SFAdv's, so use that game's overall look as a reference. In other words; sorry, but no banana yellow jumpsuit for Slippy.

That should be it for now.

* * *

**_StarFox: The War Within_**

**Part I: Discovery**

_In a distant corner of the Lylat System, largely unfettered by modern strife and tribulation, an isolated planet breaths a sigh of relief as its source of torment and destruction is destroyed…_

_A single entity rockets towards the globe's atmosphere and descends into the clouds, only to reappear minutes later…_

_It approaches another, larger artificial construct and vectors in closer…

* * *

_

Chapter 1: Return

Exhaustion.

If there was one word to describe what this particular being felt, it could only be exhaustion. Exhaustion of the body, exhaustion of the mind, even exhaustion of the spirit. It was taking everything he had left in his panting, bruised up form to simply stay awake.

The past few hours were more or less a blur to him; dozens of images he could vaguely recall, but not explain. Everything seemed to happen so quickly, so suddenly, that he was having trouble connecting the events that actually happened between the few occurrences he _did_ remember. He had experienced the full spectrum of emotions capable to a living being, ranging from extreme anxiety to joyous elation, burning hatred to overwhelming relief, all the while running solely on a seemingly bottomless supply of adrenaline.

Unfortunately for the subject in question, even this almost endless source of energy had to leave him eventually. The full force of fatigue had just hit and was already beginning to affect even the most basic functions. His eyes blurred, his reactions slowed; he was beginning to go numb in several places. Luckily for him, he had performed his current action so many times before, he could do it blindfolded. Lucky, because due to his weariness, he practically was.

He slowly pulled back on the control stick, leveling off his battle-damaged space-faring fighter with a large set of bay doors which, after a few seconds, parted on their own to reveal a sizable berth beyond. The small craft glided soundlessly into the opening and settled in the middle of the nearly empty docking bay; the massive gates behind the smaller ship gradually beginning to return to their original positions, creaking and moaning against their tracks, a result of years of neglect and disrepair. The dull thud created by their closing reverberated throughout the ship the fighter had just landed in, followed almost immediately by a sharp hissing sound as the bay re-pressurized.

* * *

"He's been in there for over ten minutes now; think he's okay?"

"I'm sure he's fine; and after what he's been through, I don't really think we should rush him any."

"I guess not…I dunno, maybe I'm still just a little nervous from…well, you know."

"Andross? Indeed; that _was_ interesting, wasn't it?"

"Ugh," the first speaker said, his speech faltering for a moment as he was affected by recent memories, "Terrifying is more like it. I don't even get how he came back in the first place."

"I'll admit, that confused be a little bit as well," the second figure replied, sounding more mature and experienced than the first, "But…I've learned that some things are better left unknown."

"Yeah," the first person sighed, "You're probably right."

The dull metallic hallways hummed with the background noises of a large spaceship, generated by the thousands of internal systems running inside the walls. It was within one of these light gray corridors that two figures waited, as they had for the last several minutes since their new arrival in the Hanger, just on the other side of a safety door. Both were slightly below average height, and while they shared this one characteristic, they didn't have many other similarities.

One, the elder by at least a few decades, had a calm look about him, as if the pilot of the fighter's absence didn't affect him all that much. He wore a long jacket, which with his height could almost be considered a trench coat, and a dull red, almost brown shirt and pants underneath. His demeanor was misleading though; the hare's indifference wasn't due to lack of concern for the pilot, rather, it was because he was confident that nothing was wrong with him, and that his delay was due to purely mundane reasons.

His companion, on the other hand, wore his true emotion right on his stubby, work jacket sleeve. The toad's worry was easily readable, and he had taken to pacing an in attempt to calm himself; something that the elder found ironic as it was usually the older crowd who performed the action. The various mechanical tools on his belt clattered together when he turned and began to slowly walk in the opposite direction, something that the hare eventually began to grow tired of. He rolled his eyes and breathed out, turning to face the slightly shorter toad, who had stopped as soon as the former had sighed.

"Alright Slippy, alright; let's go check on him."

The addressed instantly grew happier as he replied, "Thanks, Peppy."

_I just hope he doesn't see this as offensive, _he thought of interrupting whatever the pilot was doing as he walked up to the docking bay door and pressed the access switch, causing a small red light located above the door to blink on and off a few times as the ship's computer gauged the pressure of the hanger. Finally, it turned green and, accompanied by a tone, the door slid open, and Peppy finished his thought, _after all, he's definitely earned the right to take it easy for awhile_.

The hare strode into the docking bay, followed closely by Slippy, and up to the fighter that had arrived ten minutes before, grabbing a step ladder from its secured place on the wall used exactly for his intended purpose and placing it next to the small craft. As he climbed it and peered into the clear, triangular cockpit though, he inhaled sharply, nearly losing his balance and hearing what could only be described as an 'eep' from Slippy below him. There, in the cockpit of the fighter, was Fox McCloud, slumped forward against the left side of the glass that Peppy had just looked in, motionless.

"What the…?" he whispered under his breath, trailing off without finishing the phrase.

For a moment, it looked like something terrible had happened to the vulpine inside; it was dead quiet, he refused to even budge a little; for all intents and purposes, he could've been unconscious at the least. This was the way it seemed until, upon closer inspection, Peppy noticed a small patch of fog growing and shrinking on the glass next to Fox's mouth. The thought that he was merely resting had never occurred to the hare, and it surprised him as much as his initial reaction had surprised the toad. "Wait a minute…hey Slippy, it's okay," he said, chuckling a bit as he spoke, "He's just sleeping…er, Slippy?"

Slippy was nowhere to be seen. Peppy swept his gaze around the hanger, but he couldn't see who he was looking for at all. Assuming that he might've run off somewhere in his apprehensive state, afraid to see what 'horror' had befallen the immobile fox to make the older being gasp like he had, the hare decided not to press his investigation further; the toad tended to disappear whenever something bad or even in the least bit frightening happened, but he always showed up later.

Peppy sighed and turned back to the dozing vulpine considering his options for a second. _I could just leave him here for now,_ he thought, _but we wouldn't be able to contact him quickly if we needed to… and sleeping in that position _can't_ be comfortable_He pondered this for a few more moments before deciding. _Ah, he's gonna hate me for this_.

He steadied himself on the step ladder and knocked on the cockpit a few times. The hollow thumping sound it made could easily be heard throughout the silent hanger, but when this didn't work, he tried rapping the part of the window where the fox's head was, with a lot more success. Fox awoke with a start, coughing and rubbing his bloodshot eyes before he looked sleepily to his left at what had caused the interruption in his previously peaceful slumber. He muttered a few words, but due to the cockpit between them, the one on the outside couldn't hear anything that was said. Peppy made a signal with his paws and mouthed the word 'open,' and, after a few seconds of delay due to his tired state, Fox flipped a switch on the control panel in front of him, opening the angled glass screen.

"Hey Pep…" he repeated, "What's up?"

"Well, until a few seconds ago not you." Fox gave the humored hare a weary grin. "I've seen a lot of things in my life, but I've never seen a pilot fall asleep in the cockpit."

The vulpine's grin faded as he showed a genuinely surprised look and responded, "Was I really sleeping?" After receiving a nod he continued, "Wow, I guess I didn't…realize how…tired…I…was…." As Fox was talking, he began to doze off again, but Peppy caught him.

"Yeah, looks like you still don't. How about you get out of this thing before we have to drag you out?"

Fox nodded and, with a little help from Peppy, half-climbed, half-stumbled out of the cockpit and down to the metal deck of the _Great Fox_. At the sound of his boots hitting the steel, Slippy immediately popped out from under the wing of another nearby fighter where he was hiding and, at the sight of his friend/captain walking, snapped out of his juvenile worry. Peppy soon wished he had stayed in his hidden corner however, once his shrill voice filled the room.

"Fox! You're okay! We thought something was wrong, but you're fine and-"

He was cut off by the stern look Peppy shot him, followed by the hare placing a finger over his mouth, a fairly recognizable signal for 'shut up.'

Slippy fell silent and watched as Fox, without even acknowledging him, trudged across the docking bay floor, towards the door that led into the rest of the ship. He looked back at Peppy, who was fishing out Fox's backpack from the bottom of the cockpit and, after finding it, descending the step ladder and following Fox out of the bay. Slippy, still not quite grasping what was happening, quickly ran up to Peppy's side.

"What's wrong with Fox?" he questioned as they left the hanger.

"Nothing really," Peppy responded in a slightly hushed tone, "Probably just a little tired."

They watched as the fox slowly made his away through the hallway and approached the elevator doors…which he then proceeded to walk right into with a thud. His head jerked back and his posture straightened briefly, and he just stood there with a confused look on his face, as if he had expected the doors to open by themselves.

"Ok," Peppy said in surprise with a hint of humor, "_Very_ tired."

He jogged quickly over to where Fox was standing and activated the elevator for him, to which Fox muttered a 'thanks' of sorts and crept into the lift, followed by Peppy, with Slippy staying behind and returning to the docking bay. The latter was the resident mechanic, and, while he was interested as to what was going on, he figured the sooner he analyzed the damages on Fox's fighter, the sooner he could begin the actual repairs, which were ultimately more important than his curiosity.

After the doors closed, Peppy pressed a few buttons and the elevator hummed to life, beginning its short ascent. Within a few seconds of understandable silence between the lift's two occupants, it reached the designated floor and beeped once before slowing and coming to stop. The doors opened and Fox lurched forward, making his weary way down the corridor towards his private quarters. He stopped in front of his door and hesitated, and for a second Peppy thought he would have to enter Fox's code for him, too. After a few moments of standing absolutely still though, he pressed a few buttons on a keypad next to the door, and with a quiet click, it slid open. Fox stumbled the last few meters into his room and, without further thought, fell down onto his bed and into a deep, dreamless sleep.

* * *

Peppy watched from the elevator as Fox's door slid shut, chuckling to himself and punching a few more buttons on the elevator control panel, causing the lift to close and continue its ascent. It reached the top of the ship a few moments later and opened to a short hallway, which dead-ended into a pair of somewhat larger-than-usual doors. He walked through these doors, which _did _open by themselves as the hare neared them, and onto the bridge of the _Great Fox_.

It was a decent sized, roughly circular room; large enough to seat four or five comfortably, but small enough so that no one was ever more than five meters or so from a wall. In front was a large view-port that stretched around the forward half of the bridge, along with a variety of consoles and seats for Peppy and Slippy. Towards the back was a slightly raised platform, where Fox had his command station/revolving chair, next to which were the heavy automatic doors.

Peppy sighed and, after leaning Fox's backpack against the wall next to the doors, sat down in his usual spot, bringing up several color-coded pictures of the ship and its various components on his console. Almost every section of the ship was either yellow or orange, reflecting the poor condition of the vessel. _Well, the old girl has certainly seen better days_, Peppy thought to himself as he leaned back and scratched his grey-furred chin. He was about to further investigate the carrier's status, when a small blinking light and a faint beeping caught his attention.

Glancing over at Fox's chair, he noticed they were coming from the small terminal on his armrest. Peppy walked over and sat down, entering a few commands before the beeping and flashing stopped as a window popped up on the terminal screen and several lines of text appeared:

INCOMING TRANSMISSION

SENDER: GENERAL PEPPER

RECIEVER: STAR FOX TEAM

SUBJECT: MISSION COMPLETION AND DEBREIFING

HOLD TIME: 15:37

Peppy watched for a moment as the bottom number continued to increase before suddenly realizing what it meant. He quickly pressed another button on the chair and spoke uncharacteristically frantically into a small grille next to it.

"Slippy, get up to the bridge right now!"

After a few seconds of delay, a slightly tinny sounding response came.

"Why Peppy, what's going on?"

"There's no time to explain, just get up here now."

"Alright, I'll be right there."

Regaining his barely lost composure, the hare quickly made his way over towards the back of the bridge where a neatly assembled collection of metal parts and appendages sat against the wall. Activating a console behind the jumble of steel, Peppy entered a couple of remote commands, and the mass of parts appeared to almost assemble itself into a tall, whitish-grey robot. As soon as the machine appeared to be 'on', he gave his orders to it verbally.

"ROB, began start-up procedures and prepare to record the following transmission."

After receiving a cold, metallic 'affirmative', Peppy returned to Fox's chair and waited for Slippy. The toad scrambled through the bridge doors a few seconds later and Peppy activated the com connection.

The holographic projector clicked on, and a flat, static-filled screen was projected in the air near the front of the room. A moment later, the image cleared and revealed a middle-aged hound dressed in a crimson general's uniform, sitting behind a desk in a modest looking office. He was furiously typing away on a desktop computer and didn't seem to notice that _his_ previously blank screen in front of him now showed the bridge of the _Great Fox_. Peppy, holding respect for the General's (and their employer's) rank, let this go on for a few seconds before politely clearing his throat and speaking.

"Ahem…General?"

Pepper, as the name sign on his desk read, pressed a few more keys and looked up at the camera. "Ah, Peppy my friend; it's good to finally hear from you. I was beginning to think that you wouldn't answer."

"Yeah, sorry about the wait," Slippy responded, "We were…uh…"

"Repairing Fox's Arwing, sir." Peppy finished, glancing with a slight bit of reproach at the toad.

"Ah, well, that's understandable." said Pepper. He looked around the picture of the _Great Fox_'s bridge and continued, "Speaking of Fox…I see he's not currently with us; I take it he's preoccupied with something important?"

"Yes, he's sle…" Peppy caught himself. Telling Pepper that their leader missed his call because he was sleeping probably wouldn't look too good. Not to mention the General had already been on hold more than fifteen minutes. So he coughed and finished, "He's in recovery." _Which is technically true, _he thought.

"Of course; I believe he's earned a little down time. Anyway, you'll have to forgive my straight-forwardness, as I'm expected in a meeting in a few minutes."

"Not a problem General, go right ahead," Peppy replied.

"Good. I called to let you know that according to some long range surveillance, your mission was a success, and that your payment is being transferred as we speak. I would like to congratulate the Starfox team on another stellar performance."

Slippy was internally ecstatic, and couldn't suppress the grin the sprouted on his face as he heard of their contractual fulfillment and subsequent monetary gain. But Peppy noticed something different about Pepper's tone of voice, preventing him from sharing the toad's initial feelings.

"That's great General; but it's not the only reason you contacted us, is it?" he questioned.

"As perceptive as always Peppy," Pepper chuckled before becoming a bit more serious, "But…you're right. To put it simply, I wanted to ask you about another possible contract. However, the details are still a little unclear, and I'd rather not disclose anything over the com system that could be intercepted."

Peppy waved his hand, "Say no more, just name the place."

The General gestured to the room around him, "My office here on Corneria should suffice. Let's set the meeting for two days from now?"

"That sounds perfect," the hare responded, "We could use the time to make some repairs and rest up."

"Excellent. I've already cleared your ship for passage in the Norda Pass through Meteos, so that should speed up your return trip a little. I'll talk to you…hopefully _all_ of you, in a few days. Pepper out."

The faded gold furred hound tapped a key on his computer and the projection turned into static, an action mirrored on the other end by Peppy doing likewise with the vulpine's laptop-like console as the bridge fell quiet. The silence was soon broken, however, by ROB's monotonic voice booming out across the bridge:

"Unidentified Arwing Fighter Class ship approaching, bringing up image on bridge Heads Up Display."

A digital box appeared within the bridge window, showing a close up of a small fighter craft, almost identical to the ship Fox had flown in previously.

"Hm, Falco's back," Peppy stated.

"Yeah, I was kinda wondering what happened to him after that last battle with Andross," said Slippy.

Peppy and Slippy had been able to witness that final battle through the same technology that allowed them currently to zoom in on Falco's Arwing. They had seen how Fox had almost been swallowed, ship and all, by the massive face of the horrendously deformed simian Andross, and how Falco had intervened at just the right time to save him. They had also seen the massive explosion that resulted from the final, fatal barrage from Fox's fighter. After that however, Peppy and Slippy lost sight of both Arwings; Fox's had later shown up on approach to the planet, while Falco's had seemingly disappeared altogether.

Peppy's eyes narrowed a bit as he suddenly realized something odd about how ROB had worded his announcement. _Unidentified?_ "Wait," the hare said cautiously, "Slippy, did you key in the Falco as a friendly?"

"No," Slippy replied slowly, recognizing what Peppy was thinking, "I thought you did."

As if to confirm their worries, the _Great Fox_'s alarms sprang to life, piercing the air with sirens and bathing the bridge in red warning lights. ROB's metallic voice was barely heard above the overwhelming noise.

"Warning: Unidentified fighter approaching primary docking bay, presumed hostile."

"No, ROB, he's…he's a…" Peppy was having trouble concentrating while trying desperately to cover his over-sensitive ears from the commotion. "Just turn off the alarm!"

"Error, unable to deactivate proximity alarm, suggest alternative request." ROB replied.

"What! What do you mean 'error'?"

"Unable to deactivate proximity alarm, suggest alternative request." the robot repeated.

"It must be a glitch," Slippy yelled over the deafening sound.

"Why can't you deactivate the alarm?" Peppy shouted at ROB.

"Unable to deactivate individual alarm units, total alarm system termination required to deactivate current alarm." ROB answered, still maintaining the same constant monotone despite the clamor.

"Fine; just shut the whole damn system down," Peppy commanded with frustration.

Almost instantly after he had said this, the alarms shut off and the bridge lights returned to their usual dull white color. Peppy and Slippy both breathed a sigh of relief and slumped back in their seats, the former's ears ringing slightly from the audio assault. After a few seconds they glanced at each other and the toad swiveled his chair around to face his console, chuckling as he began to type.

"Well," he said, "Chalk up another system that needs replacing."

"Indeed," Peppy replied somewhat tiredly, "I just hope the payment from this mission is enough to cover everything."

Slippy was about to agree, but got cut off by a new voice on the bridge.

"Hey, you guys gonna open the doors or what?"

"Hey," Peppy responded through the com with a hint of anger in his voice, instantly knowing who it was and intentionally replying in a semi-sarcastic manner; it was the only way he remembered getting through to the owner of the voice when he used to live on the _Great Fox_, "How about you try knocking next time."

"Yeah Falco, you could've a least let us know you were coming," Slippy added.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Falco replied mockingly, "I guess I shouldn't have assumed my buddies would keep my ID data handy. Let me in."

Peppy rolled his eyes and mumbled something to himself before pressing a button on the touch-panel in front of him. This was shortly followed by a faint rumbling from below as the hanger doors re-opened.

"Well," Slippy said with a slight smirk, "At least we know _one_ thing's not broken around here."

The hare shook his head and replied, "No kidding; I think we'll always be able to count on him to stay the same."

The pair got up and headed through the bridge doors towards the lift, but Slippy stopped short at the threshold, realizing they had forgotten something. He looked back at ROB and said, "Hey Peppy, what about the security system?"

"Don't worry about it Slip," Peppy called back from halfway down the hall, "There's not another ship around here for sectors, and besides, I'd rather not risk the alarms going off again due to some other 'glitch'."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Slippy replied as he ran to catch up with Peppy who was already waiting inside the elevator. "Hey, you think that alarm woke up Fox?"

Peppy laughed a little and hit a few buttons on the lift's control panel. "Judging by how he looked coming in I doubt it." The lift closed and began its controlled descent towards the _Great Fox_'s docking bay level.

* * *

"Hey Gramps, what took ya so long?"

Falco jumped down from the cockpit of his fighter and strode up to meet Peppy midway to the door of the hanger with a smirk on his face. "Arthritis actin' up again?"

"I may be old, but I can still turn you right around and kick your sorry tail off of this ship." Peppy replied, the anger from the alarm fiasco still showing in his voice. The veteran's tone softened however as he offered his hand and continued with a sigh, "But…it's good to see you again Falco."

The blue-feathered avian seized the hand and gave it a firm shake, his tone also becoming more serious. "You too Peppy."

Just then, Slippy came hesitantly through the door and walked over to where the other two were talking, unnoticed. He fully expected the reaction his presence would get around Falco, but he still felt compelled to at least say 'hello' to the avian. At a lull in the conversation he coughed discretely and braced himself for what he knew was coming.

"Hey, Slip-up!" Falco exclaimed, turning his full attention to the toad, "How's it going?"

Slippy cringed as he heard the nick-name he hadn't been called since Falco left the team a couple years ago. "Fine," he replied quietly, eyes lowered, any hope that Falco _had _changed gone out the airlock.

Falco frowned as he noticed the volume of Slippy's voice. "Oh c'mon, you can't honestly say that and sound and look like you do," he said, seemingly concerned. "Aren't you happy to see me?"

"Of course," Slippy replied, and he was. Falco had always been a close friend to Slippy; he knew the avian didn't mean what he said when he made fun of him, but after awhile it got annoying. And sometimes it actually hurt. _Oh well_, Slippy thought to himself, a smile returning to his face, _it could be worse._

"Alright then," Falco said, giving him a friendly slap on the back and almost sending the diminutive toad to the deck. "Now that that's outta the way, you guys can help me carry my stuff."

He turned back to his Arwing and grabbed a duffel bag out of the bottom of the cockpit; being a head or two taller than the others in the hanger, he didn't need a step ladder like Peppy had earlier. While reaching for the bag, he flipped a switch in the cockpit which opened a decent sized cargo compartment along the bottom of the nose/body of the Arwing. Falco tossed the duffel bag towards Slippy and reached back into the newly revealed compartment, picking up the suitcase that was stored there. He was about to head for the door but before he could get a step off, he heard a clattering noise and noticed Slippy pinned to the deck by the duffel bag.

"Sorry 'bout that lil' buddy," Falco said, laughing as he bent down and removed the strap from around the toad's neck. Slippy immediately shot back up, panting and gasping for breath. He looked at the avian angrily.

"Jeez Falco, whadya got in there; pipes?"

Falco flashed a grin and replied slyly, "You might say that." Before Slippy could question him further though, Falco resumed walking towards the hallway, suitcase in one hand with the duffel bag strapped around his shoulder.

Peppy and Slippy caught up and after a short elevator ride, arrived on the second floor. As they walked down the corridor, Falco spoke up again, "I trust nobody's screwed up my room or anything while I was gone?"

"Of course not," replied Peppy as they arrived in front of his room's door. "Everything's just like it was when you left."

"That's good," Falco responded, typing in a few digits on the keypad, "I had just gotten it the way I liked…"

He trailed off as the door slid open and revealed…a perfectly clean room. There were still signs of Falco's former presence in the form of pictures and posters, but other than that it was absolutely spot-free. The single bed was made, the pictures and small trinkets the avian left behind were all arranged perfectly on the dresser and desk, and the various placards and posters were all hung and taped at perfect angles. It was, in a word, clean.

"What the hell did you do to my room!" Falco exclaimed, looking furiously at Peppy.

The hare didn't seem to notice the avian's anger as he replied, "Oh, that's right, I took the liberty to clean up a fewthings."

Falco felt like tearing the ears off the elderly rabbit, but another question popped into his head.

"Wait," he started, still seething, "How did you get in there in the first place? I don't remember giving you my code."

"Oh be sensible," Peppy retorted, "Your code wasn't that hard to figure out; it was one-one, one, two-zero, two-zero, right?"

Falco's eye's widened as the hare recited his code, apparently from memory. "How did you know that?" he asked incredulously.

"Heh, even _I_ knew that Falco," Slippy dared to chime in, "It's the numerical translation for Ka-"

"Alright, alright, I'll just change it then," Falco cut in, feeling himself begin to turn red and eager to get off the subject. He found his relief as he realized he had missed someone in his homecoming. "Hey, where's McCloud?"

Peppy smiled and pointed to the door across the hall from where they were standing, "He's sleeping; you should've seen him coming in."

"Sleeping?" Falco said, not quite believing that the former 'Hero of Lylat' would be so tuckered out after one, albeit tough, fight. "Andross was hard, but not _that _hard. I mean look at me; I'm fine."

"True," Peppy replied, and then, recalling the information he retained from monitoring Fox's movements and progress on the mission, continued, "But you weren't running around on the planet for the past week and going the last three days without sleep."

"Yeah, I guess that would do it," Falco admitted, nodding and making a mental note to ask the vulpine about the whole assignment later. Then, to his surprise, he let out a long yawn. "Hm, guess I was wrong about that fight…you guys don't need me for the next eight or nine hours do you?"

"Nah, I was actually just about to retire myself," said Peppy.

"Well we all know that," the avian chided, his trademark quick-wit showing no worse for the wear of his being absent from the _Great Fox_, "I think what you meant was 'I'm tired.'"

"I know, and I said that I…" Peppy began and then stopped, catching on to Falco's joke. "Oh, very funny birdbrain."

"Heh, I thought so," he replied before finally entering his room, throwing his hand up and calling back over his shoulder, "Night y'all."

Slippy responded in kind and Peppy just mumbled something about kids and respect. The two returned to their respective rooms and the hallway fell silent.

* * *

Falco set his luggage down on the floor next to his bed and took off his leather flight jacket throwing it on the dresser. He went about in this same haphazard manor with the contents of his suitcase for a few minutes before setting his other bag on the bed and unzipping it. He reached in and carefully removed the first object which, when halfway out, closely resembled a long slender pipe, as Slippy had suspected earlier. However, as the avian pulled the rest of it out, it became clear that the object in question was used for something much different than plumbing.

_Yup_, Falco thought to himself with a childish grin as he pulled the sniper rifle fully out of the bag, _always travel with company_. He looked through the scope and, after adjusting a few knobs on it, placed it back in the bag. The interior of the duffel bag was interesting in design, consisting of a metal shell and a few racks; ideal for the safe storage of long-barreled weapons, but heavy. After checking the other equipment to make sure nothing was damaged by the earlier incident with Slippy, he shoved the bag under his bed and lay down on top. Falco sighed as he placed his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. _It's good to be back_.

* * *

And so the last living entity aboard the _Great Fox _fell into the rejuvenating unconsciousness of sleep, both of the returning beings in particular appreciating the safe respite the ship granted. The lights of the vessel, both internal and external, dimmed and the humming lessened, and the whole craft took on a look and feel similar to those housed within; sleep.

Eight hours passed this way, without any interruption. Until…

* * *

"Target within range; initiate auto-docking procedure?"

The computer's metallic but friendly-sounding voice sounded throughout the small shuttle. After receiving a 'yes' from the solo pilot, the old, rickety ship began to shake and rattle slightly as its engines powered up in preparation for positioning and docking. As it approached the rear hanger of the _Great Fox, _a smaller, auxiliary docking bay located just above the main engine array, half up the ship, the doors mysteriously began to open without input from the pilot. Any person with even a fleeting knowledge of a large ship's security system would've found this at least a little odd, but the inexperienced pilot didn't give it a second thought. The small craft glided into the bay and hovered for a moment before slowly settling down on the metal floor with a heavy clang.

* * *

5 Minutes Earlier

* * *

The bridge of the _Great Fox_ was silent; the only source of audible noise being the faint humming of the ship's internal systems. ROB was the only presence in the room; he stood completely motionless against the wall next to the bridge doors, hooked up via cable to a port in a console nearby. The slit near the top of his head that normally served as ROB's 'eye' was dark, and the whole robot had a look of sleep about him. Then, suddenly, his 'eye' snapped on, and his previously slumped chassis straightened up.

"Unknown ship approaching the _Great Fox_, personal freighter class, no armaments detected, presumed neutral."

A few seconds passed in the otherwise empty room before he spoke again.

"Unidentified ship within docking range of auxiliary hanger, no landing requests detected, initiating alarm sequence."

A few more moments passed and for awhile, nothing happened. Then, ROB's monotonic voice broke the relative silence again.

"Alarm system manually deactivated, seeking alternative method of alerting crew."

Once again the bridge fell quiet, and once again, just a little bit later, his conversation with nobody broke the tranquility.

"All crew members currently engaged in standard nocturnal rest procedures, all crew members request no interruptions, assuming control of the _Great Fox_, initiating communications with unidentified craft."

This time the bridge didn't return to silence, as immediately after ROB finished saying his last word, he made a strange buzzing sound, ending with a sharp snap, courtesy of some internal malfunction.

"Error detected, shutting down."

He slumped forward and his eye turned dark once again. The bridge returned to its former hushed state, interrupted only by the constant, almost inaudible, humming.

* * *

The auxiliary docking bay was about a third the size of the main hanger, able to carry roughly two or three ships, depending on the amount of space they took up. It was also substantially thinner than the primary docking bay, forcing the three ships, had it been full, to line up in a column. But, at this current moment, there was only one, newly arrived shuttle in the hanger and for a minute or two, it simply sat there, statuesque.

Then, the hatch on the side of it hissed open, casting a shaft of light into to the otherwise dark bay. A silhouette appeared in the doorway, seemingly hesitant to leave the sanctuary of the transport for the uncertainty of the relatively massive _Great Fox_, stopping on the edge of the frame and perked its ears as the being became tenser. This uncertainty passed soon enough though, as the figure jumped down from the elevated hatchway, and landed on the metal deck with a pair of quiet 'clicks'.

For a moment, the figure stood in the near pitch blackness of the hanger, unmoving and weary of the darkness surrounding it. Then, after a faint rustling sound, a soft, bluish light sprang out from the end of a stick-like object in the silhouette's hand, surrounding its owner with a bubble of illumination. Now able to see clearly, the figure cautiously made its way to the door at the end of the hanger; its tail twitching at every unknown sound or groan the _Great Fox_ made. It paused in front of the door, and was apparently confused as its hand hovered over the keypad, unsure of what to press. After a moment or two of hesitation, the figure pressed a button, seemingly at random, and was rewarded with the sliding open of the door.

The lights of the hallway were still dimmed, but they provided enough light that the mysterious light source the figure was carrying was no longer needed. She, as it was now obvious the silhouette was female, deactivated the light and held the short, thin stick loosely at her side, unwilling to part with it for the time being.

She was about to step out into the corridor and begin searching for someone to talk to, when a burst of static from the in-ship com system caused her to jump back into the bay with a muffled gasp. A high-pitched yet tired sounding voice echoed out of the hidden speakers.

"Hey, I'm about to engage the omni-drive; if anyone's awake down there, you should probably hold on to something. Not that anyone is of course…" The voice spoke the last line a bit quieter and trailed off.

The unknown figure peered carefully out from the doorway of the hanger, as if expecting to be attacked at any moment. She had never heard or known of a PA system, and wasn't sure what to make of what she had just experienced. With a flick of her wrist, the object she was carrying extended into a full-fledged staff, decked out with gold trails running the length of the dark blue shaft. One end was the same cylindrical prism she had used for light earlier, and the other was equipped with a similar looking gem, encased in a sharp, almost spear-like head. The figure seemed to take comfort with her newly revealed weapon, and slowly stepped back into the hallway, staff at the ready with the business end braced out in front. However, once again, her first steps into the corridor were interrupted, this time by a physical force rather than a verbal.

The _Great Fox_ seemed to fall totally silent for a second, causing her to pause in midstep, and then it suddenly accelerated to extreme speeds, throwing the unsuspecting figure on her back with a yelp. She tried to recover, but the extreme g-forces pinned her to the floor and against the bulkhead. After a few seconds of panic, however, the late G-Diffuser system kicked in, allowing the bewildered figure to slowly rise to her feet.

The hallway seemed to have a grudge against her, scaring the living daylights out of the figure twice within a minute of her arrival. Her determination prevailed though, and she continued down the hallway, step by shaking step, each making a quiet 'click' as her sandals softly tapped against the floor. At the opposite end of the corridor was a large, open room. The figure headed towards this, hoping it might contain someone she could talk to, or at least something that would tell her if she was in the right place.

She passed a few doors without further incident, but as she approached the lift, it opened, causing her to jump back and crouch, staff head pointed at the now open elevator shaft. The figure visibly relaxed however, as she saw a short toad trudge out of the doorway and head away from her, towards one of the doors near the end of the hallway. The toad didn't seem to even notice her, despite the fact that she was only a meter or two away. She stared at him for a moment and figured, at the least, he wasn't threatening, and called out in a soft, accented voice.

"Excuse me…"

The toad didn't seem to notice so she cleared her throat and tried again, slightly louder this time.

"Um…Excuse me…"

The toad still seemed oblivious to her presence, so she walked forward a few strides and tapped it on the shoulder, beginning her previous line again. "Ex-"

Whatever trance the toad was in previously was instantly broken, as the second she tapped him on the shoulder, he jumped and spun around to face her. His face read pure terror as he realized she wasn't someone he was used to seeing on the ship and, before she could say anything, he pulled out a strange device from his belt. In his confusion though, he lost his grip on it, and began juggling it, trying desperately to regain control of the object while the 'intruder' attempted to calm the toad down.

"No, no, its okay, I'm not going to hur…"

Somehow during the toad's fumbling, the device went off, and bright blue bolt of energy shot out and struck her in the bare left shoulder. She instinctively clutched her right hand over the impact and watched for a split-second as arcs of electricity bounded across her body before blacking out.

* * *

5 Minutes Earlier

* * *

"Why am I always the first one up, I do everything around here, never get thanked, always…"

Slippy mumbled to himself as he left his personal room and walked across the hallway to the lift, his eyes bloodshot and barely open. Once inside, he pressed the 'bridge' button and almost fell asleep standing up while waiting for the elevator to reach its destination. He was jerked awake as the elevator arrived on the top floor and the doors parted. Once on the bridge, Slippy gratefully sat down in his chair, and powered up the main console from hibernation. The screen snapped on and immediately displayed a text box.

UNKOWN SHIP IN AUXILERY DOCKING BAY

PERSONAL FRIEGHTER CLASS

TIME ELAPSED SINCE ARRIVAL: 1:19

Slippy, in his sleep-deprived state, didn't bother to read this message, only seeing it as something blocking his reason for getting up so early. He closed out of it immediately and began typing in the sequence to start up the means by which they would cover the immeasurably long distance from Sauria to Corneria; the omni-drive.

The omni-drive transportation system was a way to travel extremely long distances in short periods of time, making it essential for almost any type of practical space travel. However, such technology did have limitations; the most noticeable of which were its long charge up times, large fuel consumption and tremendous size, making it mountable only on larger capital ships and freighters. As the _Great Fox_ began charging up the necessary energy for the jump, Slippy activated the ship's com system spoke in a weary voice.

"Hey, I'm about to engage the omni-drive, if anyone's awake down there, you should probably hold on to something. Not that anyone is of course…"

_Why do I always do that, nobody's every awake before me, I'm always the only…_ Slippy continued griping to himself. He waited about a minute for the gauge to turn green and activated the omni-drive system. The _Great Fox_ seemed to die for an instant, the silence even covering the near constant background humming, and then the stars in the view-port on the bridge turned into streaks of light as the carrier accelerated and attained incredible speeds. Slippy was pushed back in his cushioned chair and tightly gripped the hand rests. It took few moments before the G-Diffuser, a G-force nullifier of sorts, caught up with the velocity of the ship. As soon as it did, and his task completed, the toad got down from the chair and stumbled back to the elevator, eager to get the day over with. He entered the lift and was about to press the hanger floor button, but stopped and pressed another when he realized he had forgotten his tool belt in his room.

Slippy, still groggy, was completely oblivious to the landing of the freighter. Had he been fully awake, he would've noticed the message that he deleted without reading on his computer. Had he been fully awake, he would've noticed that ROB didn't activate himself when Slippy, a crewmember, entered the bridge like the robot was supposed to. Had he been fully awake, he would've noticed the light blue vixen that appeared to his left when he exited the elevator. But of course, he wasn't fully awake, and thus didn't catch any of the signs that something out of the ordinary had occurred.

Therefore, he was extremely surprised to feel something tap his shoulder on the way to his room.

* * *

Slippy stared, wide-eyed and mouth agape, at the crumpled form of the vixen he had just stunned...literally. He forgot about the blaster he was juggling, and it clattered to the ground, about the same time as the stranger's staff. It took a few seconds to register what had just happened, but when it hit him, he took off running to his leader's room, which was only a few doors down the hall towards the lounge.

"Fox!" he screamed, pounding on his door and glancing back at the unconscious body. He repeated his exclamation a few times and after getting no response, tried Peppy's room, back near the lift.

"Peppy! Hurry up! I think I did something! Pepp…" the toad stopped as the door slid open, revealing a tired looking, definitely annoyed Peppy dressed in a bathrobe. His annoyance dissipated though, when he realized that something had to be really wrong for Slippy to get _this_ worked up.

"Slippy, calm down; what happened?"

The toad began rapidly spitting out an incredible amount of incomprehensible words before being cut off when Peppy placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Never mind; just tell me where."

Slippy pointed a few meters down the hallway. Peppy followed Slippy back into the corridor and saw the prone body of the vixen, still unmoved from where she went down and Falco standing over her, dressed the same as the day before, just as surprised as Peppy. The hare slowly walked over to the recently awakened avian and soon all three were standing above and behind the body, trying to figure out a number of questions that came to mind.

The one that probably popped into all of their heads first was why she was dressed as she was, with a top that just covered what was necessary and what could only be compared to a loincloth around her waist, both of a strange, almost tribal design. These were accented with a pair of shoulder plates and forearm guards of the same pattern, along with a pair of necklaces; a choker style around her neck with a green gem in the center, and a more ornamental one around her forehead containing a red gem. The 'outfit' was completed with a couple of tattoos on her upper arms and thighs, and a few bands around her tail. All and all, it wasn't exactly the standard fare as far as traveling clothes go. Falco nudged her head with the toe of his boot and let out a low whistle as it rolled over to the side without resistance.

"Jeez Slip, you knocked 'er out cold."

"I-I didn't mean to," he stammered in response, "She just kind of…surprised me."

* * *

Unknown to the trio standing above her, the vixen had just snapped out of her unconsciousness, roused by the moving of her head. She heard the voices before opening her eyes, and wisely kept them shut, already trying to gauge their distance and height.

"I think I recognize her from somewhere."

She heard one of the figures speak the words, followed by a few questioning lines from his companions. She also noticed an ever-so-slight change in the other two's voices as she assumed they turned their heads to look at the first speaker. Taking a chance, but needing to know of her surroundings if she planned to escape, she opened her eyes slightly into small, barely noticeable slits. Her assumptions proved correct as she saw three beings standing in the top of her vision, their heads turned towards each other in conversation.

On the left was the short toad she recognized as the one who had used that stunning device on her, and next to him, in the middle, was a slightly taller grey hare, apparently the oldest of the group by at least a couple decades; the last, right-most being was a much taller, blue-hued falcon. She also noticed the last carried another one of the strange devices on his belt. Before she could consider her options though, the avian on the right casually looked over towards her, and did a double take as he spied the small slits on her previously closed eyes.

"Hey, guys…she's up."

His companions both turned to look at her, and she reacted, bringing her knees up against her chest and planting her hands on the deck. Before any of the observers could do anything, the vixen pushed off backwards with her hands and kicked her feet out over her head, planting one in the face of each of the hare's startled friends, chosen because of the threatening devices they carried. Using the momentum generated by this, she continued the reverse somersault, landing smoothly on one knee and taking off down the hall. Unfortunately, she was running straight towards the dead-end lounge, and the three behind her were blocking the way back to her ship.

Falco, half-expecting this as soon as he saw the being's eyes open, recovered quickly and in the blink of an eye un-holstered his blaster, flicked a tab on it turning it to stun, and targeted the fleeing stranger. Just before he fired though, he felt a hand on his forearm push it down.

"Don't worry about her," Peppy calmly said, "There's no other way out."

The running female was about to enter the large open room she had seen earlier when a door slid open to her left. As soon as she saw from the hallway that the larger room had no other exit, she stopped and quickly doubled back to the newly opened 'route', expecting to be hit with another bolt of energy at any time. She burst through the threshold and tripped over something, falling to the floor with a gasp.

* * *

20 Minutes Earlier

* * *

Fox's emerald eyes snapped open.

For an instant, he couldn't remember anything. He didn't recognize the room he was in, he didn't recognize the bed he was on, he didn't recognize the clothes he still had on, and he didn't recall how he got there.

Then, it all flooded back in a torrent of memory. He remembered the mission; the planet, the first landing, the final battle, Tricky, Andross…

"Krystal…"

The word escaped his mouth with in a whisper as the cognitive reboot washed over his brain. He recalled the first time he saw her, suspended in midair in a transparent prism; how he had just stood there on top of the Krazoa Palace, slack-jawed at her sheer beauty. How it had lasted for a good twenty seconds before Peppy had interrupted and brought him back to reality. He remembered finally rescuing her from her imprisonment after over a week's worth of unbelievably harsh sacrifice and effort, how he had saved her from falling into the depths of the Palace, how as he grabbed her hand to haul her up from the edge they locked eyes, and how that moment seemed to last forever. Finally, with a wave of despair, he remembered searching desperately for her after the fight with Andross, and how he had left the planet without her, how the unfamiliar pain he felt surpassed even his exhaustion.

Fox lay in the same spot that he had fallen in eight hours ago for another five minutes, racked by remorse and regret. He felt that he wanted to get up, but his body just seemed unresponsive. _Why bother?_ he thought, content to just lay there; the emotional aspect of his mind having completely taken over. Slowly but surely though, his logical side began to claw its way back into power and,after awhile, and simply put, he eventually realized that he had to move on, and that, even though the circumstances of their meeting were extremely coincidental, he would most likely never see her again. This thought got him moving, and he slowly pushed himself off of the bed. He sat on the edge for awhile, still unwilling to give up his previous thoughts. But just like before, he came to the conclusion that he had to move on.

He stood up and let out a long, deep yawn, stretching his still-weary body. As he crossed the short distance to the bathroom, he heard a faint and distant 'clang' that also gave off a slight vibration, like that of a ship landing in the hanger. Fox shrugged it off though, assuming that it was just another of the many random sounds that the old carrier made.

After entering the bathroom, he turned on the shower unit and undressed, hopping into it a minute later and feeling the warm water flow through his rusty-orange fur, washing away days of dirt and grime. As he was soothed by the stream of the shower, he again got lost in his thoughts, about what had happened, and where they were going next. He lost track of time and it wasn't until about ten minutes later that a faint knocking and, through the walls and water, what sounded like a high-pitched voice snapped him out of his mental wanderings.

The fox turned off the shower and dried himself, changing into a new set of the same clothes he was wearing before, consisting of comfortable green pants and a T-shirt, and the sleeveless white flight vest, with the Star Fox logo in pin form on the left side, which he was never seen without. He casually ran a hand through a curiously white streak of fur on his head, which ran from a point just above his eyebrows, thickened between his ears, and thinned again to a point midway down the back of his head. He braced his arms on the counter and gazed at the mirror, as if something would happen if he stared at himself for long enough. Finally, a small smile crept onto his lips and he shook his head, clearing the final vestiges of the thoughts and memories that had been attacking his brain since he awoke.

_Oh Foxy, _he thought to himself as he threw the towel onto the nearby rack and turned to exit, the smile still plastered on his face, _Looks like ya finally caught a glimpse of lov-_.

Fox left the bathroom and opened the main door to the hallway, but stopped both his motion and his thought when he heard the quick footsteps of someone running by. His grin faded and instinct took over as he flattened himself against the wall next to the door, tensing as he heard the footsteps coming back towards his now open room. Knowing that the person was heading his way, and realizing from its frantic footfalls that it wasn't a member of the crew, he waited patiently until just the right time, and stuck his foot out into the entrance way. He was rewarded with something solid striking his out-stretched leg and a bluish figure falling into his room. Fox immediately leapt upon the stranger and pinned it down by forcing its arms to cross themselves over the person's neck, further immobilizing it with his knee on its abdomen as he kneeled low on the other.

Even before he recognized the intruder by sight, he recognized the feel of her wrist as the one he had pulled up from the edge back on Dinosaur Planet. The intruder seemed to realize this too, as she stopped struggling and silently looked back up at Fox. They stared at each other speechless for a second, green eyes on blue, before something clicked in his mind and he found his voice.

"Krystal?"

* * *

So, for better or for worse, there ya go. Like what you see? Let me know by dropping a review. Don't like what you see? Let me know by dropping a review. Kinda undecided? Lemme know why…by dropping a review. (I had to do something other than the usual 'Please R&R'.)

I am going away for a week or so on Spring Break, so any who're interested in the story (Hey, a kid can hope, can't he?) will have to wait for a while before the next update; sorry.

And thank you for committing the time to read this; I really honestly appreciate it.


	2. Chapter 2: Reunion

A/N: Howdy y'all.

After a hiatus for spring break and a week of sun-drenched beaches and ice-cool surf (not gonna lie; it was pretty sweet), I'm back with the next entry to my story (and it only took me about four times as long as I originally intended...whoopee?).

Many thanks to my reviewers; there're no words to express how happy I am to know that my first chapter garnered some interest. But, to see my attempts at finding said words anyway, look at the end of this chapter for individual replies.

I will say this in regards to a point brought up in some of my reviews though; things may be slow for the first few chapters. It'll pick up eventually, but especially here at the beginning, a lot of it'll be on themellow side. Probably should've clarified that last time. Sorry.

And, just before we begin; like almost every author before me who has promised to update once a week, I'm afraid I may have to cancel my earlier statement. Due to having chapters already written, I've had to split my writing time between reviewing and fixing those while at the same time continuing the story itself with new chapters. I thought such a set up might speed things up a bit, but if anything, it has only succeeded in slowing it down. My apologies.

* * *

Chapter 2: Reunion

"Krystal?"

The cerulean vixen nodded meekly and Fox's eyes widened in surprise as he smiled with her; his mind so clouded with emotion that he completely forgot he was still pinning her down. A lock of hair, deeper in hue than the rest of her azure fur, fell from her emerald eyes as she turned her head slightly to the side, glancing at where the gloved and orange shaded paw grasped one of her own. Finally, feeling a bit a resistance to both his grip and in her stomach through his knee, he quickly realized what he was doing and sprang off her, blushing furiously. After helping Krystal up, he sputtered out an apology.

"I-I'm uh…sorry about that."

She rubbed her wrists where the fur had been pushed out of place and replied with a smile, "It's okay Fox; it's not your fault."

Her voice, even in such a short statement, was melodic to the vulpine, bringing back the thoughts he had told himself to forget minutes ago, and with a peculiar accent that only added to its beauty. He noticed she was still wearing the same clothes that she wore on Dinosaur Planet, which didn't help his blushing any; but, before he could say anything else to greet her, Falco burst through the doorway, blaster held at the ready, and leveled it at Krystal.

"Hey! Falco, long time no se…" Fox started as he recognized the voice and shape of the new occupant of his room, raising a hand for a casual shake before being cut off by the avian.

"Fox! Get down!" he called out from the threshold, prepared to stun the vixen again.

Fox raised an eyebrow in confusion for split-second before he caught on to the implication and, without thinking, quickly moved in between the blaster and its target.

"What? Oh, no, Falco, she's okay."

He slowly lowered his weapon and looked at Krystal with a suspicious eye. The other was still black from the kick he had received just recently.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, she's okay," he repeated, his companion peering over his shoulder at the avian with a look of slight apprehension.

"…Alright then," he said, holstering the blaster, "Peppy wanted to see you, both of you, in the lounge."

Falco stared again past the vulpine at Krystal and looked like he was about to apologize, but decided not too; he was still apparently mad about the nasty bruise she had given him, and instead just snorted and left.

Fox cocked his head to the side slightly before he turned back to Krystal, motioning towards the door and inquiring, "What was that about?"

The two foxes walked out of the room and into the lounge, Krystal filling Fox in on what had happened since she had arrived. As he listened, he couldn't help but notice the semi-primitive way she described everything; the way she spoke as if she didn't know the names for simple every-day devices. He held his tongue about it though, as there didn't seem to be a point in correcting her at the time.

The lounge of the _Great Fox_ was located on the bow of the ship on the second floor, just behind the two main guns. Serving as both the entertainment room, with a flat-panel TV against the far wall, and as the mess hall, with a small kitchen in the back left corner, it was the hub of the vast majority of the crew's off-duty activities. A hub that they had been using more than their financial situation would've allowed for in the past year or so for want of jobs. In the middle of the room was a low table surrounded by a number of comfortable looking chairs; it was here the rest of the crew was waiting for them.

The first thing Fox noticed as they walked in was Slippy, who was holding a large icepack to his face. He turned to his companion and had to keep himself from laughing as he asked, "I take it that's your handy work?"

She gave a small smile and nodded meekly, as if to say 'oops' as they continued to the ring of chairs and took their own around the table. Nobody responded with a greeting or welcome; no-one had really given the matter any thought, as everything had happened so quickly. There was a short silence before Peppy spoke up, stating what seemed to be the general thought in the room.

"So…how shall we start?"

"How about this," Falco said irritably and turned to Krystal, having suddenly come up with an idea for conversation, "Who are you, and what the hell are you doing on our ship?"

"Come on Falco; that wasn't necessary," Peppy said tiredly.

"No, it's okay," Krystal responded, surprising both of the previous speakers, "I probably should explain myself."

She paused for a second of recollection before explaining to the crew everything that happened on Dinosaur Planet after she had landed on it, gaze shifting between the three faces and one icepack. Given the fact that she was trapped for most of the time the Starfox team had been present near the world, her story was fairly short, while the explanation of what happened before they arrived was practically non-existent. When she got to the part where Fox had taken off to fight Andross, she turned to the vulpine and continued.

"I waited for a few minutes before realizing you weren't coming back, or at least not immediately. So I jumped on a passing Cloudrunner and headed towards a hill near the Palace, where I left my ship. When I arrived, I found a few Lightfoot poking around inside, pulling wires and making a mess of things; they ran when they saw me, but as I started up the craft, I noticed a few of the systems were damaged."

"That's probably why we didn't notice you on our radar," Slippy said, words muffled by the pack still covering his face, "They must've done something to your ID transponder."

"My…what?" Krystal asked, giving Slippy a questioning look.

"Your Transponder; you know, the thing that lets everyone know where and who you are," Slippy replied, but after removing the pack enough to see her retain her confused face, he sighed, "Never mind; keep going."

She nodded slowly, still bearing a slightly confused face, and continued with her story.

"So, as it lifted off, I saw a massive explosion in the sky, but as it broke out of the atmosphere, I only saw one ship, which was this one." She gestured around her. "Seeing no other options, I headed here. My ship seems to be considerably slower than yours though, and it took awhile to reach it. I'm…sure you know the rest."

"…Well gee, that's really swell and all," said Falco after a beat, obviously still steamed, "But you didn't answer my questions; who are you, and what are you doing here?"

"Oh…I'm sorry. My name is Krystal," she stated, blushing slightly.

"Krystal…what?" Falco said, revolving his hand and expecting the full name.

"…I'm not sure I understand," she replied, giving Falco a perplexed look.

"Your last name," he said, now sounding a little frustrated, "What is it?"

"My…_last_ name?" she struggled out, saying the words as if speaking them for the first time.

"I don't think she has one," Fox offered, quiet and lost in thought up until this point in the conversation. Krystal looked at him; grateful for his interjection, but still perplexed as to what they were asking for.

"Wha…uh, fine, whatever," Falco said, tilting his head and wanting to inquire further, but stopping after hearing a discreet grump from the hare seated next to him. He looked at Peppy for a moment, silently asking him what he did wrong, before turning back towards the female, "Okay, now why are you here?"

"Well," the vixen replied, turning again to Fox, "I came…because of you." Falco snorted and let out a sarcastic 'awww', but if Krystal heard it, she ignored it and continued, "I never got a chance to thank you for what you did."

"H-hey, no problem." Fox stuttered out, nervously scratching the back of his head. With Krystal speaking directly to him and giving him her undivided attention, he completely lost his previously calm demeanor. "I mean hey, I couldn't just leave you stuck there, ya know?"

Krystal brought her hand up to her mouth and laughed, oblivious to the effect she was having on Fox, "Yes, and I'm certainly glad you didn't."

The male vulpine melted, dumbstruck by her majestic laugh. He followed with a quiet chuckle of his own, careful to go too loud for fear that his voice might betray his feelings, and unaware that it already had to everyone _but _the vixen. Both luckily and unluckily for Fox though, Falco abruptly and rudely broke the spell.

"Wait, hold up; you came all the way here to _thank_ somebody?" he asked in disbelief, "Why didn't you just contact us over the com?"

"Well, that wasn't the _only_ reason…and to be honest, I'm not sure how to," she confessed a little sheepishly, retreating from her former manner a bit as Falco's accusing speech had blunted her mirth.

There was a short, stunned pause before the previously silent Peppy spoke.

"For a person who owns and operates her own ship, you don't seem to know a lot about it…or its technology."

"Yeah, and I noticed when you were telling your story, you said that 'it' took off, and 'it' cleared the atmosphere; weren't you flying it?" Slippy commented.

"Erm…yes and no," Krystal replied, sounding unsure of herself, "I can control it fine in space and in general flight…but for landing and taking off and other complicated maneuvers, the ship seems to take care of itself." There was another short silence before she admitted, lowering her eyes, "I…I'm not from around here."

"No," Falco said as he crossed his arms, voice dripping with sarcasm, "There's something nobody knew. By the way, your accent and clothes; totally don't give it away."

"Yes, I've been wondering about that as well," Peppy said, leaning further back into his chair and stroking his chin. "Where, exactly, _are_ you from?"

"I…um…" Krystal started. She had a look of indecisiveness about her, not sure if she should tell these, for the most part, complete strangers about her past, partially due to the fact that she was unsure how to explain everything even if she _was _going to. She didn't understand a lot of it herself. Before she could continue though, Fox politely interrupted.

"Hold on now," he said, regaining his usual confidence and looking at the still downcast vixen, "Krystal, you don't have to tell us that if you don't want to. After all, you barely know anybody here."

She looked up at Fox and smiled, causing the same reaction within him as it did before, although his outward appearance held up surprisingly well. Peppy and Slippy nodded with understanding, but Falco still wasn't satisfied. He began to protest, but abruptly stopped due to an unseen kick in the shin from Peppy, who then turned back to the vixen.

"That's perfectly understandable and we won't pry anymore than is necessary." He paused and nodded in response to Krystal's thanks before continuing, "But if you don't mind me asking…a little earlier you said that thanks weren't the only reason for coming here. Why else did you come?"

She stalled quietly for a moment or two, unsure as to whether or not it would be right to say what she was going to say; she wasn't even positive if she meant it. So she stared silently at the ground, forming the words in her head and taking a breath before replying.

"I want to come with you," she said bluntly.

Peppy and Fox leaned forward with surprise, and Slippy lowered the icepack from his face; even Falco raised an eyebrow at the statement. No one had expected such a request, although a certain vulpine was certainly pleasantly surprised. He was about to accept and welcome her onto his ship and into his life, but then common sense returned to him like a shot to the gut.

While he had hoped for this moment ever since he first laid eyes on her, he knew he couldn't stand to take the risk his lifestyle entailed. The thought of having her by his side for any period of time was something that he would've given close to anything for; but at the same time, the thought of being responsible for her pain, her suffering, or worse as a result of a botched mission or the like was itself practically unbearable. After sighing with true disappointment as he chose his decision, he told her.

"I…I'm sorry Krystal, but with our line of work…I can't let you to join us. You could get hurt."

A wave of sadness seem to sweep over the vixen's body as it slumped a little in her chair; but before she totally gave up hope, she asked one more question, both out of curiosity and even a bit of suspicion.

"Well, what exactly _do_ you do?"

Now it was Fox's turn to pause and think of the words to say. He was pretty sure what her reaction would be to his response; it would probably be the same as _his_ first response to his father's identical job, but he saw no other way around it. If he wouldn't allow her to join them, he could at least tell her the truth.

"I'm…_we're_…mercenaries."

Krystal gasped. Her gaze pivoted to each of the assembled team members, each of them nodding silently in confirmation of their captain's statement. Even with her limited knowledge of technology and the like, she knew what mercenaries were, and if nothing else she knew what their land-based cousins were like back on her home planet. Rumors abounded throughout the system of the usually nefarious deeds of these 'Soldiers of Fortune' and how they performed cold, merciless acts for nothing more than a paycheck. She suddenly saw the people in the room around her in a slightly different, more threatening light; she became more alert and began to tense up, breathing a little harder than usual.

"You're…" she trailed off.

"Yes, but it's not like that," Fox quickly said, seeing her reaction, "We don't accept just any job that comes our way." He tried to give a reassuring smile and finished, "I guess you could call us…_moral_ mercenaries."

Her expression lightened slightly after hearing this, but just as quickly she returned to her previously downcast state as she remembered Fox's earlier decision. A tight emptiness flowed through the room as she once again locked her sight with the floor, and the occupants glanced at each other with a variety of meanings and implications. Falco's was most recognizable as he stared at Fox and Peppy with impatience, expecting them to do what seemed obvious and kick the stranger off the ship. Fox on the other hand, looked almost imploringly at the hare; the vulpine may've been the official captain of the team, but he almost always followed the elder's advice, and now wasn't any exception.

"You know," Peppy offered, breaking the silence with a sigh as he made up his mind, "She doesn't have to _join _us; she could just _come_ with us."

The words cut through her sorrow like a beam of light as vixen looked up at the hare, eyes full of hope, and then quickly shifted to Fox, who was apparently thinking about the new possibility. Of course, he already new what his answer would be; he just didn't want to seem too eager about it.

"I suppose that could work out," he said, careful to hide his enthusiasm. He then nodded and returned Krystal's gaze. "What do you think?"

Krystal wasn't so conservative.

"Yes!" she almost shouted, causing the unsuspecting crew to jump slightly. She caught herself though, and after a little red made its way to her cheeks, she tried again, "I mean…of course."

"But I have to warn you," Fox added, "Things can get dangerous; we are a mercenary unit after all, and it kinda goes with the territory."

"That's okay," Krystal replied after regaining her composure, "I've been taking care of myself for quite a while; I'm not _completely_ helpless."

"No kiddin'…" Falco muttered, rubbing his bruised cheek, followed by a grunt of agreement from behind the icepack.

"Well then it's settled," Peppy said, "Miss Krystal, I'm sorry, but we don't currently have any extra rooms. We're due to arrive at Corneria in about…" He glanced at his wristwatch, "Two hours though, so until we get there and make arrangements to include a little remodeling with our refit, feel free to explore our humble abode."

"Thank you…uh…"

"Peppy, Peppy Hare. Oh that's right; we still haven't been properly introduced. That's Slippy," he said, gesturing to the toad, who removed his icepack and gave a polite 'hello' before replacing it, "And the bird over there is Falco." Falco acknowledged her with a jerk of the head. "I'm sure you know Fox," he finished with a knowing smile and pointed to him.

She nodded and, after greeting everyone else, took Peppy's offer and headed for the hallway, eager to see the rest of her new, if not possibly temporary, home. Fox mouthed a visibly heartfelt 'thank you' to the hare as she did so, who responded with a smile and a wink. The other two were watching their guest exit, and therefore didn't see the exchange.

"One more thing Fox," Peppy said aloud after Krystal left the room, "General Pepper contacted us after you returned and said he wanted to talk to us once we reach Corneria."

"Really? Sounds promising," the vulpine said dryly, remembering how long Pepper's famous debriefings usually took. "Anything else?"

"Nope, I think that's it for now; make sure you two are ready to leave in an hour and a half."

"Gotcha…wait, what do you mean 'you two'?"

"Well, Krystal certainly isn't going to know where everything is right off the bat, is she?"

Fox turned a little red, almost forgetting about who was probably still waiting for him outside the lounge. He hurried out to the corridor, where she was indeed waiting and curiously looking around, seemingly fascinated just with the features of the hallway.

"Sorry 'bout that," he said, jogging up to her and coming to a halt.

"That's okay," she responded, her wandering gaze returning to the vulpine. "So, where do we start?"

"Start?" Fox said, again losing his presence of mind around her, "Oh, yeah, the tour. Well, I think we should get your stuff off your ship first; there's no telling what Slippy will do once he gets his hands on a new chassis, now that you're staying and everything."

"My ship? What's he going to do to it?" She asked worryingly as they walked down the hallway, towards the auxiliary bay.

"Nothing bad," Fox quickly reassured her, "He's probably just gonna…fix it up a little."

"Oh," she replied, not fully understanding what he meant, but trusting what he said.

Along the way, they passed Krystal's still-extended staff lying on the floor, unmoved from where she dropped it when she was stunned. In her hurry to escape her 'assailants', she had instinctively decided to leave it behind, knowing that the extra split-second needed to pick it up could cost her everything. Now, she was too absorbed by the previously hostile hallway to notice it, leaving the vulpine to retrieve it.

"Hey, it's my staff," he said jokingly, referring to his companion's seemingly overdramatic sense of relief in finding it, on him, back on the planet after he freed her.

"_Your _staff? Its _mi-_" she began, suddenly defensive but stopping when she saw his expression of humor. She too remembered her reaction at seeing it again on Sauria and laughed as he handed it back to her in its retracted state. "Thanks," she managed sheepishly, still a bit embarrassed by her adverse outburst.

They crossed the threshold into the hanger and, after Fox activated the huge overhead lights, proceeded up to the only craft in the bay. Now fully illuminated, the sorely outdated shuttle looked even more out of place in the pristine hanger, which had been kept clean through utter lack of use. He noticed this and decided to venture a question while Krystal hoped up inside the ship and began retrieving her belongings.

"So, uh…how long have you been flying this ship?"

"Ever since I left home," she replied, slightly muffled due to the metallic barrier of her vessel between them, "So a little over a decade."

"And you never thought of trading it in for anything…newer?"

There was a short pause as she considered the question, "Not really; this has always been able to service my needs. And besides, I wouldn't know where to start looking for a new ship."

'_Wow_,' Fox thought to himself,_ 'She wasn't kidding when she said she wasn't from around here; I can't walk for two minutes on Corneria without seeing some sort of ad for a 'new' craft.'_

A crashing noise returned the vulpine's focus, and he quickly boarded the shuttle from which the noise had originated. When he finished hauling himself up into it, he was met with a strange sight. Large, acorn-like nuts were scattered throughout the floor of the cabin underneath an open wall compartment, along with a sack of what appeared to be her stuff, consisting only of her staff, a few other assorted items and a couple changes of clothes (although they could barely be called that), similar to what the vixen was wearing at the time. He noticed as well that she had taken off her shoulder and forearm guards, which were also visible in the bag.

Krystal looked up at Fox from a surprised crouching position among the scattered suppliesfor a second, and then burst out laughing, her chimes echoing into the hanger. Fox quickly followed suit; it wasn't all that funny, but he didn't want to embarrass her further by letting her laugh alone. He bent down to help clean them up and while doing so, asked what they were for.

"Well, I figured I should bring some food for the journey into…uh…Cor-ner-i-a," she responded, sounding out the last word.

Once again, the tables flipped and now Fox had to keep himself from laughing.

"Don't worry about that; there's plenty of food on the planet." He said, trying as best as he could to hold it in. After a pause allowed by a deep breath, he calmed down and added seriously, "You really _aren't _from around here, are you?"

She had finished placing the nuts in a rough pile in the corner of the ship and was listening to Fox's last comment when she shook her head in a slow, almost sullen way. If he had known what his next question would result in, he probably would've let the subject drop there.

"If you don't mind me asking," the vulpine continued, standing with her to full height, "What were you doing all the way out here before you were captured?"

Krystal knew that the question was going to come up sooner or later, and so had a response at the ready. She _did_ want to tell him the full truth, but at this point she wasn't sure if that would be a good idea. She had to keep reminding herself that he was technically a stranger until less than a day ago, and that no matter what her conscious told her about him…he was still a mercenary, and not to be fully trusted.

"Well…I was looking for some clues as to what happened to my parents," she replied smoothly, a result of the numerous times she had practiced it in her head. Her statement was partially true, as she had lost both her parents some time ago and was still curious about the circumstances of their demise; but the full truth was much more horrifying than that.

"Really? What happened to them?" Fox asked unwittingly, too eager to make conversation to notice what he was asking.

"They…died several years ago."

There was a long, drawn-out and awkward silence between them as the vulpine's grin of friendship faded into surprised horror. Krystal gloomily stared straight into the floor, her previously light and joyous eyes now clouded with memory and remorse, while Fox was in shock over how badly he could've missed where their dialogue was headed.

"I…I'm sorry," he managed to softly say after a moment or two.

"It's fine," she replied, never moving her eyes from their spot on the floor, "You didn't know."

Another period of uncomfortable silence and standing passed before Fox, desperate to get off the subject and back on to happier things, abruptly shouldered the sack of Krystal's few possessions and jumped down to the deck, beckoning her to follow. She gave a weak smile and complied, ignoring or completely missing his offered hand of assistance for the leap down. As they walked to the hanger bay door, he decided to mention something he usually didn't in front of strangers, or anybody for that matter; only doing so because in a way, he felt the same as what he was about to say.

"Hey, Krystal…if it makes you feel any better," he began, conscious of her slowly falling behind in step, "…I lost both of my parents a while ago too."

She kept her eye glued to the deck and replied, "Why would knowing that make me feel any better?"

"Well, maybe because now…you know you're not alone in being without them."

She halted and stared at Fox, who stopped walking a few steps later and turned halfway back to her. As their gazes met, she dipped her head a bit below his sight level and her eyes began to dart around in thought and confusion. Never once in her travels had she ever considered that someone else might share even a fraction of her pain at the loss of her family. The fact that it was no longer true produced an odd, strangely relieving feeling within her; something that she had never remembered experiencing before.

"…Yeah," she said, embracing the new emotion and coming out of her downcast state, "I guess you're right. Thanks, Fox."

"Glad to be of help," he responded, smiling.

She caught up with him and they proceeded into the hallway, Krystal regaining her normal, upbeat attitude. Fox halted for a second and grabbed the light switch as they left the hanger, and the great room behind them was plunged into darkness; lit only by the shaft of light from the corridor the pair's silhouettes were becoming lost in.

* * *

"You can't be serious." 

"Aren't I always?"

"Well, yeah, but we don't even _know _her, and yet you allow her to instantly board with us."

"Well obviously _Fox_ knows her, and she doesn't exactly seem dangerous."

"Are you kidding! You were there when she attacked us!"

"Seriously Falco, you should try thinking these things through; she attacked us out of self-defense and if she _had _wanted to harm us, she wouldn't have let Slippy shoot her in the first place."

Falco sighed and turned away from the hare. He knew Peppy was right, as usual, and that he was just being territorial with his old home; reluctant to share it after having so recently regained it. But that itself wasn't the only think to irk the avian; there was something else that wasn't quite right.

"What about Fox? She was practically trying to seduce him. Slippy, you saw…" he stopped, noticing the icepack still over his teammate's face, "…absolutely nothing…but Peppy, you can't look at me and honestly say she wasn't trying to pull _something_ on him. You said they know each other, and c'mon; who flies around in a freakin' _bikini_!"

"Someone who doesn't have anything else," he responded, his face contorted in thought, "I think I may have an idea as to where she's from."

"Oh, well then, _please_ enlighten us, great knower of knowledge," he said sarcastically, bowing down in his chair.

"Not yet; I want to be absolutely sure before I say anything."

The avian sighed again, this time more out of anger and defeat. Peppy's evasive manner of speaking didn't help his irritated mood any, "At least you didn't let her join the team; that was a smart move."

"You should really be more trusting Falco; it'll get you far in life."

"Pfff, who needs trust," he asked rhetorically, leaning back in his chair and giving up the initial topic of the conversation, "I got myself and you guys; that's all that matters."

"I'll tell you who," Peppy replied, "Remember back before you joined the team, when you were in the academy, failing and about to be kicked out?"

"Yeah, the Dean really had it out for me."

"You were part of a _gang,_ Falco," he said, to which the avian merely shrugged, "Anyway, remember when Fox vouched for you, and me and Slippy had to _trust_ you and Fox's word that you'd be okay on the team? Even though the authorities practically had a _warrant_ out for you? We had our reasons for not being certain about you, just like you have them for her. But that didn't stop us from letting you join us, since Fox seemed to _trus-_"

"Alright," he said angrily, cutting off that hare but cooling off a little before continuing, "Alright, you've made you're point; she can stay."

"It wasn't really your decision, Falco," Slippy commented.

Falco ignored his statement, "But regardless of all of that, you gotta admit; she's pretty far out there."

"That, I can agree with you on." Peppy responded, laughing a little.

"Hold up a sec."

Fox doubled back to his room after passing it by a few steps, having suddenly remembered something, and put the sack down outside his door as he began entering his code into the keypad. It occurred to him as he was doing so that he didn't recall having locked it, but he just passed it off as Falco's doing.

"I uh…I just gotta grab a few things before we start," he explained to his companion, who had a curious look on her face, "I'll probably forget them if I wait 'till later."

Krystal responded with a nod of comprehension and peered over his shoulder, watching him enter the series of numbers. For purely innocent reasons, she read off each digit in her mind as his finger struck them, and memorized the combination, not quite catching the importance of it along the way. Fox took a half-breath like was about to say something back over his shoulder, but when he turned, he saw her face only inches away from his.

"Hey, Krys-Whoa!"

She unknowingly looked towards him, further closing the gap between their muzzles and cocked her head to the side, "What is it, Fox?"

He stared at her for a second, the gears in his head having frozen in shock, before jumping back and gasping to catch up with his heart, which was racing miles ahead. The vulpine's eyes were wide and his ears were perked, giving his shear surprise and touch of terror away to even the most casual observer. Krystal saw this and became concerned, although still naïve to the effect she and her unintentionally personal behavior were having on him.

"What's wrong?"

"I…whew…um, no offense Krystal, but I need a bit of personal space here," he panted, struggling just to talk.

"A bit of what?" she asked quizzically.

He stalled again, catching her confusion like a disease, before he remembered what had come up during the conversation in the lounge a few minutes ago, "Did you…have any sense of…uh…privacy where you came from?"

"…What do you mean?" she questioned again, not catching on.

"Well, um, did you…" he began, opting for a different tactic, "Did you _own_ your own stuff?"

"…No, not really; we shared almost everything," she replied, adding with a little worry, "…Did I do something wrong?"

"No, it's just…around here, we have private rooms and property, and it's considered rude to invade upon them without asking permission of the owner," he explained, making a connection that he felt would make sense to her, "Same goes for…personal space."

"That's a little weird," she said, her confusion giving way to a slightly amused expression.

"Yeah, well, that's kinda how it works around here," he breathed, "So you might want to consider that if you're going to be living with us."

"Al-right; I'll try to respect that rule from now on."

"Thanks…I appreciate it," he finished, finally recovering from his near-heart attack enough to speak with any semblance of confidence.

He turned from the genuinely apologetic vixen to the keypad, and entered the final digits in his code, proceeding into the now open room. Krystal began to follow him but, remembering what she was just told, stopped and waited outside, not wanting to offend her new home's customs further. Fox noticed this and smiled, now back at relative ease.

"Krystal, it's okay," he said, motioning her in from a few steps inside, "You can come in; I just meant in a general sense what I said a minute ago. Around our ship you can usually go wherever you want, just knock before going in personal rooms."

"Oh…okay," she said, still slightly confused as she walked into Fox's room.

The first thing she noticed as she crossed the threshold was the overall order of the space; everything seemed to be placed where it was for a reason; she hadn't really seen much of the room on her first, unintentional visit, being preoccupied with other things. The room was fairly small, but had room for a bed, bathroom and a desk and chair. It was very hotel-like, although she didn't recognize it as such, with the bathroom immediately to the left as she walked in, the bed against the far side wall and the desk against the closer side wall. The one thing that stood out the most, or the least, about the space though, was the lack of any windows in the room. '_Or anywhere else,'_ she thought to herself.

Her visual sweep finally fell on Fox, who was grabbing his belt off of the desk and fitting it around his waist. Krystal noticed another of those strange, stunning objects in a holster on the belt, along with a few other pockets. He also strapped on a strange band around his forearm, something she noted due to its odd look; unlike the cloth armbands she was used to, his appeared stiff and hard, and he clicked it into place with a snap.

"It's a very nice room," she said, glancing at some of the pictures and various trophies around the walls and on the desk when he looked up.

"Oh, thanks," Fox replied, watching her look around his room again before focusing and touching a few keys on the 'armband'. He wasn't used to people giving him compliments about his room; he wasn't used to _having_ people in his room for that matter.

"If you don't mind me asking though…," she started, her curiosity overriding her limited knowledge of manners. She continued after a 'not at all' from Fox, letting his banded arm fall to his side and giving her his full attention, "What's that glass over there for?"

She pointed to a large pane of the said substance mounted on the far back wall, seemingly offering a view only into more steel. Fox followed her motion and saw what she was pointing to.

"That's just the window," he shrugged, looking back to what he was doing and picking up a few more things of the desk, placing them in various pockets; unlike the vixen, he considered the topic done.

"_That's_ a window?"

"Yeah…oh, it's not open," he responded, catching on to what she was getting at, "You want to see it?"

"Sure."

Fox strode over to the control panel on the inside of the door, turning sideways past Krystal who was still standing in the short entrance hallway. He tapped a switch and turned back towards the window to see the protective blast doors on the other side of the glass abruptly part about a foot for a moment before opening smoothly the rest of the way. Krystal exhaled in surprise when she saw what was on the other side.

Instead of the usual black backdrop dotted with stars and various vapor formations, she saw a light red, almost pinkish streak stretch across the entirety of her windowed view. The unexpected swirl and splash of color and its alternatively fading and intensifying motion captured her, the gentle pulsing seeping its way through the glass until she could feel it within her own body. Her ring adorned tail slowly fell limp and her mouth hung open in awe. Fox walked back up to stand beside her, and noticed her expression.

"What, you've never seen omni-space before?"

She just shook her head slowly, as if in a trance, while the vulpine considered her response for moment. _'She _must've _seen it at least _once_,' _he thought, _'How else could she have gotten all the way out here?'_

"Well how'd you get way out here then?" he asked, his internal monologue getting the better of him.

"I…don't know; I just flew, I guess," she responded, still mesmerized by the color outside the window.

"Oh."

'_Whoa_,' he thought, staring at her, staring at the omni-space, _'That must've taken at least three or four months from even the closest station…I gotta remember to ask her about that later.' _Fox let her staring go on for a bit longer, unwilling to break the peaceful look on her face, before finally interrupting.

"Well, I suppose we should get started then."

Her nod in response was sluggish and detached, as if moving in slow-motion. She made no discernible effort to move away from her stare of wonder, and it wasn't until Fox poked his head into her field of vision and called her name that she blinked a few times and regained her presence of mind. He repeated his statement as a request.

"Oh…yeah," she answered as soon as she understood, taking one last look at the window.

He nodded with a smile and led her out to the hallway, grabbing the lights on the way out. The corridor was still relatively quiet; quiet enough to hear snippets of the rest of the crew chatting about something in the open lounge.

'_Probably talkin' about Krystal,' _he mused, not realizing how right he was. His companion, and the subject of his friends' largely unheard conversation, had proceeded a bit ahead of his position just outside his room when she stopped and turned around towards him.

"What about my things?" Krystal asked, remembering that Fox had dropped them off by his door.

"They should be okay back there," he responded as he crossed the hallway and hit the elevator call button. He got no verbal reassurance from the vixen, but her physical expression as she arrived next to him told him that she was fine with where her belongings were. The doors opened and they stepped inside as Fox finally began thinking about the 'tour' he was supposed to be leading, "You've seen most of the middle floor, so we'll start up top."

"Alright," she replied, and then looked around the small room they just entered. The compartment they had just entered was smaller than any space she had seen so far on the _Great Fox_, and its purpose escaped her, "What is this place?"

His finger stopped at the control panel before touching any of the buttons; surprised at himself for forgetting something that was obviously below her level of technological comprehension. He couldn't go as far as to blame himself though, as he, like every other being in the Lylat System, took the machine he was about to explain for granted. "This," he began, "Is a lift. It…well…_lifts_ things up and down between levels in a structure."

"Huh," she reflected, glancing at the plain and undecorated walls that betrayed none of the machinery beyond, "How does it do that?"

"Well…" He did have a general idea of how they worked, but got the feeling explaining it would only confuse the vixen more, "Here; I'll show ya."

After pressing the top floor button, the doors began to close, stirring within Krystal a little uneasiness as they slid shut; being essentially locked within a relatively small space, she didn't quite know what to expect. Then, the room around her began to hum slightly, and with a lurch the lift raced upwards. Krystal cringed as if she expected something bad to happen, but then returned to normal, feeling nothing different except a barely noticeable pressure pushing her down. The elevator arrived a few seconds later at the designated floor, and came to a slow, smooth stop. Fox glanced over at Krystal and gave her a smile as the doors opened.

"That wasn't too bad, was it?"

"No, not at all," she replied, looking around the new setting that they walked out into with a slight sense of awe. With no windows or methods to measure their movement other than the slight feeling of pressure, it appeared to her that the doors had closed and reopened without the room really moving. It was…odd, to say the least.

"Good, 'cause that's another thing you're going to have to get used too; we use those in practically every building and ship."

She nodded again, absorbing what he had said while at the same time taking in her new surroundings. They walked down the fairly short, monochrome hallway, very similar to the one they had just recently left, to the bridge, passing a pair of doors across from each other along the way.

"What are those rooms for?" Krystal asked as they passed them.

"That one's the armory, and that one's storage," he said, stopping and pointing to each door in turn, "Although both are almost empty right now."

"Why?" Her curiosity seemed almost insatiable.

"Well, we had to sell a lot of stuff to keep this thing flying," he replied, slapping the bulkhead affectionately, "At first it was just excess, then it was stuff we didn't really use…eventually it got to a point where we sold anything we didn't absolutely need. Even so though, we…we're still in some hard times."

"So what's going to happen?"

"We're actually getting a fairly hefty paycheck for the mission we just completed yesterday," he said, speaking as though he was just considering the thought for the first time, "So we might not be so bad off as we used to be; hopefully we'll have enough cash left over after we refit the _Great Fox_ to restock at least the armory. "

She nodded, and was about to ask a question about what the other room was for, but then a thought came to her. "…Mission?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah that's right; I never told you. The whole reason we came to Dinosaur Planet was because we were given a mission to put it back together; our employer felt that the fact that it was falling apart was a danger to the entire system, even with its remote position," he explained, continuing with the slight start that came with discovering a connection, "Oh, that's the kind of thing I meant when I said we were 'moral' mercenaries."

"Hm," she responded, suddenly seeming a little sad; the expression of reserved wonder falling a bit into concern, "So…the only reason you helped was because of the money you'd get?"

"Not entirely," he replied with a bit of a frown, seeing and understanding her change in mood, "I mean, initially, yes. But after a day or two, it became more about saving the planet; the reward was just a bonus."

She nodded and seemed to return to normal again after hearing this on the outside, but inside she was still apprehensive. Every time the fact that Fox and his team were mercenaries was brought up, she became a little nervous; even though she felt she knew them, or at least him, well enough to know they were good people at heart. It was something that the vixen knew she would just have to get over if she was going to stay with Fox and his friends for awhile. She shook the feeling off though, and tried not to think about it too much.

"Ready to move on?" Fox asked, motioning towards the bridge doors.

"Yes; let's go."

They covered the short distance to the bridge and passed through the automatic doors. Krystal stopped for a second as the doors opened seemingly by themselves, but continued on, mentally adding this occurrence to the already long list of things that amazed her. This wasn't the only thing she added though, as when she walked onto to the bridge, the 180 degree view of omni-space out the viewports immediately caught her eyes.

From the front, the reddish ebb and flow looked more like a hollow tube, where a source of the onrushing color could clearly be made out far off in the distance. The greater degree of exposure that the much wider pane allowed created a strange shadow on the pair's faces, with the crimson hue dancing across them like sun-induced water effects. Fox once again noticed her trance-like state, and politely waited a half-minute before attempting to break her out of it. However, much to his surprise, she broke herself out of it first by asking him a question, still facing out the windows.

"What is omni-space?"

"Well…nobody really knows that for sure," Fox replied, trying to keep the already limited explanation simple, "But we do know that it propels whatever the omni-drive is strapped onto to incredibly fast, yet controlled, speeds. We use it to get…around…the system…"

He trailed off as he noticed she wasn't responding to his explanation, still captured by the hypnotic sight of the crimson streaks rushing past the bridge. It was weird for the vulpine; he remembered his first experience with the odd vista of color onboard the _Great Fox _many years agobut he never remembered being enamored by it like she appeared to be.

"Uh, Krystal?"

She shook her head clear of whatever was working on her and turned back towards Fox, who was standing in front of the few steps to the raised platform. "I'm sorry Fox," she apologized, looking back once more before she continued, "It's just so…beautiful."

"Yeah…" he agreed, trailing off for a second, "But don't worry about it; I did practically the same thing when I first saw it; it seems to have that affect on people." He waited for her to follow him up near his chair before beginning his tour in earnest. "Anyway, this is the bridge. This is where most of the important stuff happens: piloting, commanding, communicating, things like that."

Krystal looked around the room at the various consoles and touch-panels, initially still hesitant to break the window's hold on her, but eventually committing and responding, "It all seems so complicated." It wasn't like she hadn't seen this sort of stuff before; her shuttle carried a little of the same equipment. It was simply the shear _amount _of it that surprised her.

"You'll be surprised how quickly it becomes second nature. C'mon, I'll show you a bit."

* * *

He spent the next hour or so teaching the ever curious vixen several of the basic controls of the bridge, surprising himself with how calm he was around her. It seemed that when he was in his element, helping someone understand what he already knew, he was much more at ease. He made note of the fact and filed it away; anything that didn't make him so socially stiff, like he was prone to being around her, was something to remember for later. 

'_Not that this is exactly first-date material,' _he thought of what they were doing, realizing it was more practical than entertaining, _'But then again, this ain't exactly a first date.'_

The time seemed to fly by as fast as the streaks of red outside the _Great Fox_. Soon though, the crimson river outside the ship gradually began to thin as the carrier decelerated. Eventually, the red disappeared altogether, replaced with the familiar black background and bright stars; however, this time, in the dead center of the bridge viewport, was the massive blue and green planet of Corneria, dotted with other space-borne ships and space stations.

Fox saw this and mentioned it to Krystal, who also looked up from a console she was being shown and out the windows. The globe she saw before her was strangely familiar-looking, like she had seen it or something like it a long time ago, just beyond the range of memory. It was like a shadow over her mind, and just as she was on the verge of recalling it, the bridge doors slid open, disrupting her thoughts and revealing a now fully dressed Peppy.

"Hm, that took a little shorter than I thought it would," he commented to nobody in particular, walking into the room. He noticed the two foxes with a grin and approached them, climbing onto the slightly raised platform and leaning on the side of the railing, "So, Miss Krystal; I trust Fox hasn't bored you with our bridge yet, has he?"

Fox caught the implication immediately and mentally chastised himself for staying in one place the entire time, and not showing her the rest. Even more so, he realized, he had taught the vixen a bunch of random stuff about the _Great Fox_, and hadn't really done much else. Krystal, on the other hand, smiled in return to Peppy's question and replied.

"Not at all," she said, "I mean, some of it's confusing, but it's all so fascinating at the same time. It's going to take some time getting used to this place."

"Indeed, it probably will be like that at first," he said, trying to reassure her, "But feel free to talk to any of us if you need clarification on anything."

"Thank you," she replied.

During the entire conversation, Fox noticed that despite his fears, all of Krystal's comments seemed genuine. '_You got lucky,' _he told himself, silently vowing to make sure he didn't accidentally do something like that again.

Peppy smiled and nodded before he turned and strode over to his post at the front of the bridge, sitting down and entering a few commands into his console. He opened an audio channel with the planet, speaking into nothing in particular, as if he were talking to a person in the room.

"Corneria, this is the _Great Fox_, requesting permission to land."

There was a short pause on the other end of the com line before a calm, feminine voice responded. "_Great Fox_, this is Cornerian Control. Permission granted; proceed to CANF Headquarters. General Pepper is expecting you."

"Already? I thought we had another day or two."

"With all due respect sir, I suppose he changed his mind; he expects you in an hour."

"Alright," he said a little tiredly, "Thanks Control, _Great Fox_ out."

Peppy flipped a switch, severing the line, before he got up and went over to where ROB sat, still in shut down mode; which to Krystal, who was watching, seemed like a hunk of metal parts. Fox realized with a start that he hadn't even mentioned ROB to the cerulean vixen and, given her apparent lack of familiarity with the rest of the tech he was so used to, the first experience with him might shock her a little; in a bad way. So, when Peppy activated the robot, and it assembled itself, she was understandably quite…surprised.

"ROB online, systems functioning at sixty percent," the metallic voice rang out. His head scanned around the room, stopping suddenly on Krystal, who was wide-eyed by now, and continued in a more aggressive tone, "Unknown being detected onboard, initiating auto-defense procedures."

Fox made a motion to move towards the robot, placing himself between it and Krystal, but before ROB could do anything, Peppy literally dove to turn him off. More than anything else, the quick athletic prowess of the aging elder caught the foxes off-guard, especially the male. The robot powered down once again, his eye dimming to darkness, and the hare sighed as he picked himself up from the floor.

"I'm sorry about that Krystal," he said while trying to regain his breath; at his age, the short and sudden exertion took more than he would've liked from him, "We really need to get him fixed."

The vixen was too terrified to respond. What had once been inanimate metal had become what appeared to be a living, breathing organism, and then returned just as quickly back to a group of lifeless parts. She turned to Fox, who hadn't realized that his step had placed her behind him, and asked in a voice that was both relieved and still frightened at the same time.

"W-what was that?"

"I'm sorry, Krystal," he replied apologetically, "That's ROB; I…probably should've warned you about robots."

"… Is he…alive?"

"Well, technically no; he's not AI if that's what you mean."

'_Ah, did it again,' _he thought, knowing that Krystal probably wasn't sure what 'AI' meant. He had had enough of his own incompetence with explanations, and was about to apologize once and for all for saying such unclear things over and over, when she began to speak before he could start, doing the clarification work for him.

"So, it's like a ship computer?"

"Sort of," Fox replied, nodding and content to leave the subject there, his surprise at her knowledge well hidden, "He's usually a lot more, er, friendly, but I think he's got a few bugs we need to work out."

"A-ah," she said, comprehending the comparison she had made for herself, but still understanding little of what had just happened.

"Erm, right; so now that autopilot is out of the question, are you gonna pilot this old girl down or am I?" Fox asked Peppy after a short pause. He intentionally worded his question over-casually in an attempt to both leave the whole ROB deal behind, and come off as confident.

"I'll do it," the hare said with a grin, noticing the language used, "I mean…who better to pilot an old girl than an old man?" The males chuckled as Peppy returned to his chair and grabbed the control apparatus that sat on the console in front of him.

The background humming of the bridge ramped up as the carrier came alive at the elder's touch. He pushed the throttle forward, revving the massive thrusters and speeding up from the idle that the _Great Fox _had retained from the exit from omni-space. The G-diffusers performed their duty well, minimizing the acceleration effect on the passengers as the ship sped towards the green and sapphire planet of Corneria.

* * *

A/N: To be honest, I personally see this as sort of a filler chapter. Nothing all that important happens, but I felt that I had to have something between Krystal's arrival and the team's arrival at Corneria. Hopefully it wasn't _too _bad. 

Review…reviews (yeah, that sounds good)

_AntiGravity 5-1-0_

Ah, my first reviewer. I can never truly express my full gratitude for your response; it…it inspired me to keep writing. I know that sounds corny, but that's the truth; when I posted that first chapter, I stopped writing until I got the first review. I figured if it (the chapter) was bad enough, I would stop working on other chapters and instead re-edit my first one; but that review told me that at the very least, I was doing _something _right. And another thank you for bringing up the error with thought portrayal; I think I got it covered this chapter.

…ah hell, thanks one more time.

_Fox The Cave II_

Wanna hear a funny story? When I first opened the review alert for this review, I literally turned to my brother (he doesn't really follow any of this; he just likes to know how my story's doin') and said, "It's _him_." No joke. Anyway, from what I could see, there were four main problems you mentioned:

-The description style, I'm sorry to say, might be present throughout the story. No disrespect to you FtC, but that's kinda my unconscious method of writing. I will go through my drafts that one extra time to try to root it out though.

-The boring part in the middle was just the set up of the chapter's events I guess. I have an outline set up forthe first part of my story (1 Part roughly 10-15 chapters), and a lot of the events are rather mundane; the ones that go into a chapter all depend on where the section breaks on the timelike happen to fall. Take this chapter for instance; nothing of real, flashy action happens, but it's kinda necessary anyway. Again, I'll be sure to try to spice things up a bit, but for at least the early chapters, don't expect _too_ much.

-Yeah, the time-jumping part. You're right; that was a bone-headed mistake. I kinda rushed to post that chapter before I left for spring break, but I'm honestly surprised at myself for missing that. But, no worries; won't happen again.

-And of course, the small, easily fixed proof-read problems.

A million thanks for the review, FtC.

_RedBay_

I knew it was a good idea to leave the anon. reviews open. Thank you Rb (sorry if you don't want your name abbreviated; lemme know and I won't do it again; it's just kind of a reflex), I love long reviews, and you certainly delivered. Let's see…

-The shorter sentences deal you mentioned is true; I can see how longer sentences can drag down the pacing. I'll definitely consider it for future action scenes.

-I think I get the general gist of what you're trying to say with the combining of description and action, and again, I'll see what I can do in my next chapters.

-Don't worry 'bout using examples n' stuff like that; whatever makes it easier for you.

-Like I said earlier, that timeline deal was a stupid mistake on my part. I'm glad you weren't thrown off by it, but it shouldn't happen again. Scout's honor.

-I agree with the cheesiness; it just wouldn't be Starfox without it, right?

-Dude, don't kick yourself about your grammar and stuff; it's not that bad, and I would gladly take a review from someone of your caliber over a quick, illegible one-liner any day.

-Hate to say this, but I'm afraid I've never heard of a book called Irish Red. My penname came from heritage and hair color; sorry man.

Thanks again RedBay; I'm glad that you liked it, and am honored that you would spend the time to type up a lengthy review like that.

_SF Ghost_

Howdy SF; right off the bat, I gotta say that I'm reading your story and it's lookin' pretty good so far (I'm on chapter 3 right now). A lot of people try reality-to-StarFox crossovers like that, and yours is head and shoulders above the usual stuff that comes down the pike; keep it up man. I'll be sure to leave a review the instant I finish reading all of it. Back to _your _review though…

-Wow; heh, you definitely get the award for most enthusiastic reviewer. I'm glad you liked it, man.

-It's true; the cliché-edness of the first chapter is pretty blatant. But, hopefully, and within couple more chapters, I should be able to divert off the beaten path of the average Post-SFA fanfic.

-And no, I don't mind being abbreviated in the least (besides, 'IR' kinda has a ring to it…yes, I know it's only two letters; but still).

Thanks a lot for the review SF; coming from a well-established author, it really means a lot to me.

A Note on reviews: If my response to your review (both here and in the future) is a little on the short side compared to others, it's only because the points you bring up have already been brought up in earlier reviews (and thus, have already been answered). No offense intended or anything.

One last thing before I finish up here. You've probably noticed that I use the term 'omni-space' to signify the usual 'hyper-space' or 'warp' deal. My original intent was to do something other than what everyone else was using for the method of getting around space fast, but I'm thinking that it doesn't really flow too well. So, if you're leaving a review (not saying you have too), please let me know whether or not I should keep it, or change it to something else. Thanks y'all.

Alright, I think that should do it for now. I've already started to revise the next chapter, so hopefully, it'll be up sooner than it took to get this one posted. And again, reviews are always appreciated, no matter the size, length, or grammar quality. In other words, don't think that based on my first group of reivews you have to right a long, insightful review; just do whatever feels like enough to you (which includes not leaving a review at all if you don't want to).

Next chapter: Turbulence

-Irish Redd


	3. Chapter 3: Homecoming

A/N: Okay, I realize that this chapter was incredibly late, and I apologize profusely to any who had to wait for it. I want to just start it right away, so for the full apology, look at the end of the chapter.

And one thing I should probably clarify up top here: I did screw with the 'canon' timeline a little bit. It's not _too _much of a distortion though, and it should be pretty plain as to where and how much I do it, but ya know; just a warning.

Oh, and I changed the chapter name from what I said it was earlier so…there's that.

* * *

Chapter 3: Homecoming

"Hey Slippy, Falco, we're about to hit the atmosphere; make sure you're tied down to something."

Corneria steadily advanced toward the _Great Fox _as the carrier sped towards her, filling more and more of the bridge viewport until the entire window was covered with the lush landmasses and deep blue oceans of the planet. Wispy strands of clouds obscured only a tiny amount of the globe as they crawled along, indicating a sunny day below; something that made Fox even more excited about returned home.

The original three crewmembers had only been away from the self-proclaimed 'Jewel of Lylat' for little more than a month; not that long for the average mercenary unit. However, the troubling and utterly exhausting events that transpired during the week they had been present at Sauria made the month seem like a year or more. The primitive planet had its unique charms; it certainly wasn't the worst imaginable place for an assignment as far as scenery went; but they only further increased the vulpine's yearning to leave them behind for the technology and comfort of modern living.

'_Although I wouldn't mind keeping _one _part of the mission around_,' he couldn't stop himself from thinking. His gaze shifted towards the unintentionally scantily-clad vixen as he leaned back a bit in his command chair, having just cut the ship-wide come system after his announcement. He caught her staring again out the bridge casement, facing away from him towards the front of the room where Peppy was cycling through various plots and grids of data on the HUD. The various graphs and icons glided across the window in a virtual dance of digital information as the hare analyzed the various readings necessary to make a proper entry into Corneria's atmosphere.

'_I wonder what it's like for her', _his mind started again as he continued to stare, _'Being in a place with barely any knowledge of what's happening…no family or friends or anything…'_

His thoughts were interrupted by a discreet cough from the front of the bridge. Fox shook his head clear and, without realizing he was propping his head up on the armrest with his hand and elbow, glanced towards the source of the noise.

He saw Peppy, watching him from his chair, his face drawn into a stern and slightly disciplinary glare. The vulpine cocked his head in confusion, still bracing it in his palm, before a realization suddenly dawned on him; based on what he had just been doing and who he had just been gazing at, the hare probably thought he was staring at…

His back straightened and he sat up in his chair, his face blushing a bit and quickly shaking back and forth in denial of what the hare was implying. _'No…he doesn't think I was…'_ A barely noticeable grin tugged at the elder's lips before he too shook his head, clearing the unspoken subject between them. After a quick glimpse to make sure the third presence in the room wasn't catching on to their silent conversation, and seeing that she was safely and curiously glancing around the bridge and at the HUD, he continued.

He motioned his head towards Krystal, again checking to make sure she wasn't paying attention, and tapping the back of his chair as he looked over his shoulder. When Fox gave him a confused and uncomprehending expression, Peppy's eyebrows slanted slightly in frustration before he motioned with his head again, this time towards the viewport. The vulpine followed his gesture but again came up empty in regards to a meaning; all he could see of any importance on the HUD besides boxes of weather and ship information was the meter in one corner that counted the closing distance to Corneria, and the glowing planet itself.

Fox cocked his head again, prompting a frown from the hare. Finally, still undetected from the female on the bridge, he mouthed the words 'your chair' to the vulpine, again nodding towards the viewport's information.

'_My chair?' _Fox thought, trying to understand what Peppy could possibly be implying, _'My chair…the planet…Krystal……what could he be trying to tell…oh!'_

"Krystal," he said suddenly, standing up as she turned to him and moving a hand towards his now-empty chair, "Er, do you want to take uh…take a seat for re-entry?"

"Oh…well, I've been through it before…" she replied with uncertainty, a little surprised at the vulpine's sudden offer.

"I would advise you take it Miss Krystal," Peppy said from his seat, spinning in it to face her, "Atmospheric re-entry can be a bit…_bumpier _in a capital ship than in a shuttle like your craft; especially for those who aren't used to it."

She nodded slowly in understanding before turning back to Fox, who mirrored her action back at her. "I…guess," she shrugged, "If you insist, I suppose. Thank you."

"Don't mention it," he replied, switching places with her to lean on the railing while she hesitantly took his command chair.

"All set back there?" Peppy called after he heard the snap of the chair's restraint.

Krystal looked up from the buckle at Fox and nodded, giving her silent assent to the hare's question. "Yeah Pep," he replied, crossing his arms and looking back over his shoulder at him, "We're good." _'Although I don't really see the need for the seatbelts,' _he mentally added.

"Alright then," the elder replied, speaking at Krystal while keeping his head turned forward, "This shouldn't be too bad; sorry if we worried you at all. The safety precautions are merely that; a precaution."

"I understand," she said, re-adjusting her position to find a comfortable spot on the slightly too-large chair. The amount of build-up that had been placed for the re-entry _had _gotten to her a little, and she was thankful for the hare's words of reassurance. Before the vixen could actually form the words of thanks though, the bridge doors opened, yielding a confused Falco, oblivious to the _Great Fox's_ current situation.

"Yo Fox," he began casually, looking at the command chair where the vulpine usually was. When he saw that a different fox happened to be occupying it at the time, he slanted his head to the side and furrowed his eyebrows a bit, puzzled as to why the vixen was where she was.

"What's up Falco?" Fox replied, drawing the avian's gaze to where he was at the railing. His friend stared at him for beat, then back at Krystal, and finally at the vulpine again, shaking his head to clear the bewilderment before he continued.

"Uh…yeah; I heard somethin' from you over the com, but it kinda dropped out at…the…end," he trailed off, noticing a faint rumble begin to emanate from the deck underneath his booted feet. In an instant the meaning of Fox's message became clear, and was further confirmed by the viewport as Falco turned towards it, "Oh."

Casually and calmly, he strode over to Slippy's unoccupied seat towards the front-right of the bridge, swaying with the occasional atmospheric vibration but not being impeded in the least. Krystal saw this and began to wonder, like the similarly unaffected vulpine, if all of the precautions were really necessary. The rest of the crew didn't need to be strapped in to anything, so why should she?

She decided after a moment or two of silent deliberation to keep the restraints on, if only because her guests had suggested so, and was immediately rewarded for doing so, as no sooner had the avian reached the chair then the _Great Fox _seemed to hit a wall of air resistance. The large carrier shook and shuttered as the hare at the helm guided the craft on its entry course, making the occasional twitch of movement on the controls as the information on the HUD dictated. She winced and cringed at every drop and heave her stomach experienced, coming to a conclusion about her previous thoughts at the same time; _'He was right; this _is_ a bit different than in my shuttle.' _

As the ship continued her descent into Corneria's atmosphere, the air friction began to build up; quickly reaching the point were an unusual orange glow formed around the outline of the bridge's viewport. Tongues of flame formed around the edges, gathering strength until they were torn loose and pulled back across the _Great Fox's _surface, dissipating once they fell off the tail end. This spectacle interested the vixen enough to draw her attention for a moment or two, but something else she saw caught it and held it.

Despite all of the trembling the craft was enduring, none of the rest of the crew seemed to be affected by it. Peppy was calm as ever, smoothly and effortlessly piloting the carrier along its path of re-entry; his demeanor hadn't changed at all from when the carrier was still in open space. Falco appeared almost humorously indifferent, as his hands were clasped behind his head and his feet were up on the console in front of him, the toes bobbing against the shaking to an unheard beat. Then her gaze fell on Fox.

The vulpine could've been resting on a couch given the level of comfort he gave off; sitting on the railing with his arms folded in mute relaxation. His body instinctively leaned one way or another, almost as if anticipating and compensating for the next dip or jolt ahead of time; even his tail's idle swaying held a rhythm despite the atmosphere's best efforts. Oddly enough though, at least to the seated vixen, it was his eyes that seemed to be most active, turning every once in a while from place to place around the bridge, settling at one point or another on almost every object and person possible…

'…_Except for me,' _she mused, noticing that his head never fully turned towards her, _'Why isn't he ever looking at…'_

As she was thinking about it, his emerald eyes managed to sneak a quick, furtive glimpse at hers, darting immediately back as soon as he saw that she was looking at him. The action only further confused her as to his behavior, but another lurch brought her attention back to the viewport and the maelstrom occurring outside the vessel.

"Shouldn't be too much longer," Peppy called out over his shoulder, striking another switch on the console in front of him.

Krystal heard the statement but was unable to acknowledge it with any action or words, so distracted was she with her own thoughts and the physical impediments the re-entry impressed upon her. She began to notice a different force pulling on her body soon after though; as if an invisible hand were dragging her slightly forward. It didn't take long for her to figure out why: the _Great Fox _was decelerating.

Along with the decrease in rumbling, the translucent flame-glow that had come to fill most of the viewport began to subside, revealing the vast landscape of Corneria beneath them, muddied in appearance from the altitude. Standing out from the run-together features of the ground though, was a massive, sparkling blue lake, bordering a splotch of grayish land that was slowly gaining focus as the craft continued to descend.

"What is that, Fox?" she asked about the gray portion of the ground; the cabin being peaceful enough now that they had no hindrance in speaking to each other.

The vulpine followed her pointing with his head, turning to look where she was designating without changing the bodily position he had kept the entire re-entry, "Hm? …Oh, that's Corneria City," he said, facing back to her, "That's where we're goin' to meet Pepper."

"Who's tha-" she began, but was interrupted by another speaker as a burst of com static filled the bridge, causing Krystal to jump in Fox's seat and the rest of the present crew to turn to the viewport.

A message box appeared in the lower left corner of the main section of the expansive window, the picture flickering for a moment before it stabilized and showed the face and upper body of the caller. The lupine pilot brought a gloved paw to his dull green flight helmet in salute as a respectfully neutral expression occupied his grey and black-furred face.

"Star Fox," he stated, using the general name of the team for lack of knowing who he was immediately talking to, "This is Lieutenant Jacobs of the 1st Cornerian Ceremonial Wing; my wingman and I are here to escort you to the surface."

"An escort?" Peppy asked in mild surprise, straining to see out the viewport to try and catch a glimpse of the pair of ships, only to realize from the radar that they were behind the _Great Fox_, "Who called that in?"

"Orders are from General Pepper, sir," the pilot replied with a casual military tone.

"Heh, well how do like that?" Falco snorted, bringing a hand from behind his head to emphasize, his boots still up on the console, "The old dog cuts off our break and makes up for it with a ride in."

"Yeah," Fox agreed, finally straightening himself from leaning on the railing and turning to face the Lieutenant's portrait on the viewport, "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"I'm afraid not, sir," he replied, a well-hidden smile from Falco's crack barely breaking the muzzle of his otherwise professional visage, "Sorry, but all I know is what they tell me to know."

"Ah," the vulpine sighed, disappointed that the mysterious reason as to why Pepper had called them to Corneria hadn't been solved any, "That's okay Lieutenant; thanks anyway."

"Not a problem, sir."

The com portrait folded into itself and disappeared as the Great Fox continued to descend, Jacobs choosing to make himself visible through another method. Two green-colored dots, representing the pair of Cornerian fighters currently escorting the carrier, moved their way up from behind the larger ship on the viewport HUD, flying between the 'x' arranged wings on their respective sides and out ahead of it at bridge level.

The entire three-vessel procession proceeded at a downward angle through the lower atmosphere, bringing them closer and closer to the rapidly clarifying city landscape below. Soon, individual buildings along the outskirts could be made out, along with the various roads and highways that criss-crossed the city. Suburbs flew by underneath them as they continued to follow their escorts, leveling off at a low altitude, normally off-limits to civilian craft.

For the most part, the present crew of the _Great Fox _felt a sense of homecoming as they proceeded inward towards the center of the city; it opened up as though the city itself had been awaiting the return of its lost citizens. However, for the newest member onboard, the sentiments were a little different.

Krystal stared at the approaching cityscape with a muted sense of both awe and anxiety. The shear scope of the metropolis startled her; the metallic structures and paved pathways, their sense of size diminished by her vantage point, seemed to stretch on to the horizon as the spacecraft continued to skim the top of the no-fly zone directly below them. It was the tremendous area that the city covered that fed both of her emotions; it certainly boggled her relatively technologically primitive mind with wonder, but at the same time it worried her that she knew she would be descending into the monster of a settlement.

Before she could give the subject anymore thought though, something happened to the two fighters' engine exhausts glowing orange in front of the _Great Fox _that grabbed her attention. A tiny, almost indistinguishable puff of white smoke popped up from each of them, followed by something that made their role as 'Ceremonial' escorts quite apparent.

A burst of multi-colored smoke erupted from the backs of their wings and thrusters, quickly thinning and reducing into individual lines of vapor streamers. The pair of fighters accelerated, performing a simultaneous barrel role and crossing each other's paths before descending even closer to the city and laying down a virtual carpet of lines of tinted fog. They continued to roll and flip, often frighteningly close to each other, as the trio of ships neared the port were they would land.

The precision display brought a smile to each of on-looking faces, and especially so to the cerulean vixen, still seated in Fox's command chair. Reds and yellows mixed with the greens and blues as the streams criss-crossed over Corneria City, visible to every inhabitant of every portion of town. Pedestrians on the sidewalks below stopped and looked skyward, their gaze mirrored by those in the innumerous amount of buildings below; soon, every person in the capital city was witnessing the dazzling array of colors above them.

"Certainly brings back memories," Peppy stated wistfully, watching the escorting fighters gravitate towards each other and fall into a large horizontal spiral, letting the tinted smoke swirl about the _Great Fox._

"Sure does," Fox replied, his mind falling back to the events of their return home after the Lylat War years ago.

It wasn't long before the city's main starport came into view in the distance, initially indistinguishable among the rest of the urban landscape. As they continued to draw closer though, the complex gained more and more definition until the _Great Fox _began to decelerate at its pilot's command, having arrived at its destination. As if in confirmation, the lead escorting pilot appeared on the HUD again.

"_Great Fox_," he reported, showing not even the slightest form of exhaustion from his maneuvers, "You've been cleared to land in dock Nine-C; an officer will meet with you upon landing."

"Thank you Lieutenant Jacobs," Peppy said, adding with a grin, "That was some fancy flying by you and your partner back there."

"Thank you sir," he replied, his face yet to betray any major emotions, "Welcome back to Corneria, Star Fox."

With that, the transmission closed for the last time and the Cornerian fighters peeled off from their charge, boosting further into the horizon towards a military base. With a final thrust from the engines, the _Great Fox _glided into position above one of the larger bays of the docking complex, halting for a moment before it began to descend into it. The edges of the vertical hanger appeared to ascend around them from the ground, swallowing the massive vessel within and blocking the near-level view of the city around them. Finally, with a last burst from the retro-rockets, and a solid and slightly jolting thump, the descent stopped, and the carrier came to a rest.

The pulsating glow faded from the engines as Peppy powered them down, followed by a long release of steam from various vents as the entire ship followed suit. Falco shifted in his seat and let his feet fall to the floor off the console with a sigh, pushing himself off the chair and helping the hare go through the usual post-flight procedure; years away from the team seemed to do little to his memory of the workings of his old flying home. A final switch was toggled, sending the HUD into a fit of flickers for a moment before the various displays on the window closed and faded out.

"Well then," the hare said, standing up from his piloting station and stretching, "Are we ready to go?"

"Yup, I'm good," Falco responded, mimicking the elder to a more limber degree.

"Same here," Fox added, looking back at the still seated vixen and asking her directly, "You ready?"

"M-hm," she nodded evenly, rising from his borrowed chair and following him off the platform and towards the bridge doors.

Peppy watched them, and more specifically her, as they approached himself and Falco, standing near the exit to the room. He looked her over for a moment or two, searching for something that seemed off about her to him, before his mind locked onto it and he reached out and grabbed the vulpine on the shoulder, getting his attention. After a casual 'what's up', the hare pulled Fox off to the side and out of ear shot from the other two.

Krystal watched them go over to the other side of the bridge, taking a step to follow him, as she was used to doing by now on the ship, but stopping as she felt a hand on _her _shoulder. Turning to face the owner of the limb, she was met with the silently shaking head of the taller avian; not particularly harsh in his expression, but merely unwavering.

She looked at him for another second or two before drawing her extended foot back, grasping the implication that whatever Peppy and Fox were talking about wasn't meant for her ears. The avian couldn't stop her from watching them though, and she continued to gaze at the secretively talking pair, noticing that they glanced directly at her a few times during their unheard conversation. This, coupled with the distinctly hostile vibe coming off of Falco next to her, slipped her mind into a state of unease and worry.

Nervously scratching the back of one calf with the toe of the other foot, she was relieved when Fox finally gave a nod to the hare and made his way back over to where she and the avian were standing. She noticed that his entire body posture seemed a little out of tune; with his ears pulled back a bit and his face showing a tiny bit of scarlet. It was almost as if he was embarrassed about something.

"We, uh," he began, looking off to the side for a moment before continuing, "We gotta make a stop at my room on the way out."

"Alright," she responded, glad to not be alone with the avian any longer, "What do we need to do that for?"

"…Er…well," Fox stalled, looking out of the corner of his eye at Falco and thinking, _'Hell, he'd have a field day with this.' _"…I'll tell you on the way down," he finished simply.

"Al-right," she said, noticing the uncomfortable feeling beginning to resurface as the vulpine walked with her out of the bridge, leaving the answer to her question unspoken.

They strode down the short hallway to the elevators in silence, their boot and sandal steps echoing off the metallic walls as more and more distance was placed between them and the bridge. It wasn't until they reached the lift that the verbal quietness between them was finally broken; however, it wasn't in answer form as Krystal had hoped.

"Uh, right;" Fox said as they stepped into the waiting lift car, still thinking about what he had talked to Peppy about, "I should probably mention that the way down on an elevator might feel a bit different then the way up."

She turned her head to look at him and stared for a beat, the lift doors closing just as she was about to ask what that meant; when the elevator fell. The strange feeling the motion created in the vixen's gut surprised her and caused more of a reaction than anything else; it was like she was somehow lighter for a moment or two. Her mind compared it to some of the effects of the landing and take off with her shuttle she had experienced on Sauria, but here, where she was _inside _of a ship, it was unsettling.

Just like the way up though, the ride was quick and soon the doors were parting again, revealing the slightly familiar hallways of the _Great Fox's _middle floor. She felt the odd sensation within her disperse and disappear as she stepped out of the elevator, making sure to hide whatever she had felt during the lift operation from her host, who followed right after her into the hall. It soon became obvious that she hadn't done a good enough job at the latter.

"Are you alright, Krystal?" he said, watching her re-adjust to stable ground with a worried expression, "You look kinda…sick."

"No…no, I'm fine," she stammered, still a little bewildered by the whole experience.

"Alright…" he said reluctantly, not fully believing her but not wanting to press the issue, "But if you ever feel uncomfortable in anyway around here, make sure you let me know."

She managed to smile a little; genuinely thankful of the offer, but physically unable to fully express it, and replied, "Thanks Fox, I'll keep that in mind."

He attempted to return her smile, but his state of mind affected his ability to convey feeling, causing it to come out more as a nervous grin. Realizing this, Fox quickly decided to get back to the reason they had gone down there ahead of the rest of the team in the first place, motioning and stepping towards his personal room's door. Unfortunately for the vulpine, said subject wouldn't exactly help distract him from any nervous jitters he had; in fact, it would most likely make them worse.

"So, why do we have to visit your room?" she asked as he unlocked the door with the keypad, his hand halting on the touch-key surface.

Fox's muzzle parted to respond, but stopped before anything came out. He closed it and dipped his sight to the ground, stalling and desperately trying to think of a tactful way to express what he was trying to say. _'This is going to be a lot harder than Peppy made it out to be,'_ he thought, running over possible explanations to her in his mind as he tried to figure out someway to tell the vixen the reason in a manner that she would understand.

"Remember…," he began, an idea springing to mind as he looked back up at her, "Remember when I said that we had some customs regarding personal possessions and stuff like that?" Her even nod in reply gave him hope that his verbal bridge would work, and he continued, "Well, we also have some unspoken rules with regards to…clothing."

Krystal cocked her head to the side and gave Fox a questioning look, "What do you mean Fox?"

"Well…our society has a belief that showing _too _much…uh…fur, is a bad thing. What you have on right now is…" he trailed off, looking at her minute attire and blanking on the words he was supposed to say; the syntax catching in his throat. She followed his line of sight and stared down at herself, seemingly catching on to his meaning and completing the sentence for him.

"Inappropriate?" she finished, returning her vision to level and catching his a bit below.

He saw her look up and immediately followed, his ears and tail falling a bit and his face reddening slightly as he realized that she had seen him looking at her in a way that appeared more than the conversation called for. However, as his focus fell on her face and he prepared to apologize, he noticed something strange; she didn't appear to pick up on it at all. Despite the fact that his intentions were purely innocent, he still found it odd that he sensed no form of animosity from her where any other girl from Lylat would be mad. If he needed any further proof that she was from out of system; that was it.

He paused a beat before breathing a quiet sigh of slight relief, glad that his eyes' actions somehow weren't misread and that she saved him from having to make the implication about her clothes, "Yeah; a little bit."

"But…I'm not sure I get it," she replied, her eyebrows furrowing in thought, "The look of somebody's clothes shouldn't matter as long as they perform they're function, right? Back on…er……where I come from, a person needs to be able to move freely so as to be ready to react to anything that may happen; too much cloth and a person's movement is restricted."

"Yeah, but around here…we're not really faced with life-or-death situations every day," the vulpine responded, noticing her miss-speak but opting not to dwell on it, "I know it may seem a little…weird to you, but here, clothes are usually about form; not function."

"Oh," she said, looking down at herself again for a second before continuing in a slightly sadder voice, "So…what should I do? These are the only clothes I have."

"That's why we came down here," he answered, pressing the final button on the keypad and letting the door to his room slide open, "You can borrow some of mine until we get you some of your own."

"I can?" she asked incredulously before remembering her manners, "Thank you Fox; but are you sure you don't mind? You only met me a little wh-"

"Not at all," Fox cut in with a response, knowing that her last comment would bring up why he was being so nice to her and not wanting to have to answer it just yet, "And besides, I'm probably the only one here whose clothes would fit you even remotely well. C'mon."

She followed the vulpine; crossing the threshold into his room, untouched since they left a few hours ago, and pulling open a sliding wall closet just inside the doorway, revealing a surprisingly sparse wardrobe of attire. A few vests and shirts hung from hangers in a row, and the shelves that sprouted from the wall contained clothes for the lower body, but that was it. For a mercenary that lived almost exclusively onboard the _Great Fox_, it hardly seemed like enough.

However, that was just how Fox operated; and with nothing else to compare it to, Krystal didn't notice anything peculiar about it. He stepped aside to give her a chance to look over her potential outfits, but the vulpine quickly came to a conclusion; she had no idea what was called for. Her eyes scanned over the entirety of the closet's contents, and stalled for a few seconds on a few items, but she maintained a slightly confused, out-of-place look the entire time.

"…I…I'm…not sure…which is best," she said uncertainly, turning to Fox with ears dipped and a nervous smile on her muzzle, "…Sorry Fox."

"Hey, there's nothing to say sorry for," he said right away, picking up on her distress, "You're not from around the Lylat System; how would you know what to wear and what not to?"

She considered what he said and nodded, understanding what he meant, but not responding otherwise, something that the vulpine took as meaning she was still concerned over her lack of knowledge about what to wear. Taking the initiative, he turned to the wall alcove and started browsing through its limited contents, pulling an item here and there, until he had a full set of clothes in his hands.

Skipping over the more casual styles, he figured the best thing for her at this point was to blend in with the rest of the team in order to minimize onlooker's questions and suspicions. Considering this, he had grabbed a plain black T-shirt and an older grey flight vest, along with a pair of the green pants of the same fashion that he was wearing from the rear of the space, indicating that he hadn't worn them for a long time and that they were, hopefully, a little small on him. He handed this load to the more slender-framed vixen.

"Thank you," she said graciously, taking the pile of cloth and setting it down on the nearby bed for a moment.

Fox watched her do this and was about to ask what she was doing when she reached behind her back with both hands. Again, the vulpine witnessed this in confusion, unsure of what she could possibly be doing, and he voiced his curiosity.

"Uh, Krystal?" he began, but stopped as a slight movement elsewhere on her body caught his attention.

Her top's strap had slackened.

It took a second for this to click in his mind, but when it did, he quickly spun on his heels and stared in the opposite direction, focusing intently on a random point on the wall, "Gah! Krystal!" he exclaimed, face burning a fierce shade of crimson, "W-what're you doing!"

"I'm…changing clothes," she responded innocently, just as surprised at Fox's reaction as he was at her action. She took a step towards his back, "…Isn't that what you wanted me to do?"

"Well y-yeah," he stuttered, unsure whether or not the piece of clothing in question had actually come off or not, but not wanting to take the chance to look, "But not here…you're s-supposed to change in a private place; like the bathroom or something."

Her opposite foot mirrored her first step and the distance between her and the vulpine decreased further, "Why? Is this another of your customs?"

"Yes," he said, wanting to end the situation as quickly as possible, but suddenly becoming interested in something her statement had brought up, "…Isn't it for you?"

"Well…" her advance stopped a few feet short of the befuddled merc, his back still firmly turned, as she considered the question, "I suppose…there really weren't any rules specifically about whether or not a person could remove their attire in another's presence…but…we usually didn't do it unless we knew the other person." She paused and looked at the back of Fox's head, "Is it different here?"

"Ye-ah," he responded slowly, "Here it's sort of the same way…but you _really _have to know the person well…"

He trailed off and she looked down at the clothes in her hands, reflecting on what he had said and realizing again that what was implied was true; they didn't really know each other. Their meeting had been extremely coincidental and, unknowingly to both of them, surprisingly romantic, but the total time they had spent together could be measured in hours on one hand. _'We're aquaintences at best,' _she concluded to herself, taking her lead foot a step backwards.

"…Should…" she began, stopping and looking back down at the floor before returning to the back of the fox's head and continuing, "Should I go change in the bathroom then?

Fox noticed immediately that the vixen had backed off physically and was grateful at least for that; his nervous state had heightened his senses unintentionally, and he had felt the tiny, almost imperceptible breeze from her exhales when she was closest to his back. "Yeah," he nodded, knowing that he was repeating himself but not wanting to take the risk of sputtering through a longer explanation. _'Besides, she seems to get the idea.'_

"…Alright then," she said a little uncertainly, turning but glancing back at the merc once more before walking into the suggested room and closing the door.

It wasn't until he heard the click of the door auto-locking that Fox finally exhaled, unaware that he had been holding his breath, and turned around. He stared at the closed entrance to the lavatory for another moment or two in a state of mixed disbelief and amazement before he fell into a sitting position on the edge of his bed. His rested his forehead in his hands and drew them up through his head-fur, smoothing his ears along the way and unable to stop a smirk from creeping across his muzzle.

'_Where could she have possibly come from?' _was the first thing that came to the vulpine's mind, _'…I just…can't believe she did that…heh…if only Falco could see me now…' _He shook his head and his smirk grew larger as his breathing and overall posture returned to normal. As it did though, and as the seconds grew into minutes of waiting for the female to dress herself, his thoughts became more broad and general, _'…I wonder why I'm so nervous around her like I am…last time I checked I was twenty-two years old; I should be a bit past the middle-school girl-fears by now…_

His internal monologue continued on for a length of time until, fairly abruptly, he heard the bathroom door slide open, drawing his attention. As soon as he saw the first leg of the vixen as she stepped out over the threshold to the room, he automatically stood for subconscious reasons he couldn't pin down. With another step, she was clear of the doorway and the vulpine could see her completely, fully redressed in the clothes provided.

Fox McCloud was stunned. In the relative silence of the room, he could hear the shuffle of the jade leg wear against fur as the vixen's uncertain and almost shy entrance came to a halt. The tips of the unzipped, outer grey vest swayed from the leftover momentum as she smoothed the black T-shirt underneath. Her banded tail swayed slowly back and forth, and her face and ears betrayed her insecurity, both of which were turned slightly down towards the floor. The visual transformation from misplaced native to a citizen of Lylat was total and complete; the only real physical reminders of her being alien to the system were the pair of gemmed necklaces around her forehead and neck, and the inescapable uniqueness of her natural fur color.

Krystal's cerulean eyes rose to his as they both stood in continued silence. Her elbow was held firmly with her opposite hand behind her back, the stance further confirming her feeling of awkwardness and timidity.

"…Is this okay?" she asked softly, beseeching him for his opinion on her new set of attire.

"I-It's more than okay," he replied a little too quickly, gazing at her once over, finally taking the risk now that she was more properly clothed, "It looks…amazing."

The apprehension seemed to fade away from the vixen as she heard his comment, giving her confidence and comfort in regards to her outfit. "Thanks Fox," she said, her smile spreading to the vulpine's face as he watched hers light up, "But…it does feel a little weird."

"Yeah," he admitted, glancing at the floor between them and thinking for a moment, "…But there really isn't any other way to go about it. Your old clothes would attract too much…attention; they'd make you stick out around everyone else." _'And I think that's the last thing we want,' _he added silently to himself.

She nodded in comprehension, but her visage soon faded back into a slight state of trepidation as she felt the pants, formerly belonging to the vulpine and therefore a little oversized for the more feminine curves of the blue-furred vixen, slip a centimeter. They went no further than that, and nothing significant was revealed, but the happening appeared to unnerve her nonetheless; something that Fox picked up on and addressed, "I realize that adjusting to all of this so quickly must be kinda hard on you..."

"To be honest…it is," she said, looking down at her sandaled feet for a second before returning her gaze to the vulpine in front of her, a gentle smile on her face, "But…it's okay; everything that you've shown and told me of your world and culture, while a little strange at times, is really quite fascinating. And you've been so kind to me by letting me stay with you and your friends…it's the least I could do in return to try to fit in to your society."

"Krystal…" he said, unable to think of anything more to say. He wanted to, and the situation called for it, but somehow, he just couldn't think of anything else that he could say to the vixen.

Suddenly, a third and slightly tinny voice broke the mood of the room, emitting from the arm computer strapped to Fox's arm and causing both foxes to jump a little in surprise.

"Fox, where are ya man? We're all waiting down here," the voice said, its tone and inflection identifying the speaker as Falco.

The vulpine didn't notice Krystal's surprised expression as he responded to the call, bringing his right arm and the com attached to it in front of him and a bit closer to his mouth, "Yeah, sorry guys; we'll be right down."

"Okay, but make it snappy McCloud," the avian replied, "There'll be plenty of time after Pepper's meeting to have fun with your new girlfr-"

Fox cut the com link as soon as he realized where Falco was going verbally, tapping a button on the touch-display of the armband to abruptly silence him. He shifted his focus back to the re-dressed vixen and was about to apologize to her when he noticed that she was staring quizzically at his arm. Or, more specifically, at the hardware attached to it.

"…What's that?" she asked, her eyes furrowed in curiosity and her head cocked to the side as she continued to look on at the armcom.

"What's what?" he said, looking behind him along her sight line until he realized she was gazing at his arm, not something past it, "Oh this? It's just a com unit."

She blinked, "A what?"

Fox looked at her for a moment before shaking his head and again realizing that this was another thing whose understanding he took for granted, "I'm sorry Krystal; I should've explained after what you said in the lounge. …You've probably been wondering where all of these random voices have been coming from since you've been here."

She nodded and he continued, bringing his left arm up in between them in order to show off the device, but noticing the time display as he did, reminding him of the call to come down. "Uh…we gotta get going," he said, dropping the arm back to his side, "I'll explain on the way down."

She nodded in agreement, understanding the slight urgency, and they left his personal quarters, heading towards the elevators. As the pair crossed the threshold of Fox's room door though, a reflective gleam caught the vixen's eye, drawing her attention to the cloth sack they had left near the door. It was her staff.

Krystal had seen how Fox had one of the strange, blue energy shooting devices on his belt among the other equipment, and rightly assumed that it was for protection. As she had thought about it, and despite the apparent safety of the _Great Fox, _she had begun to feel defenseless without the staff she had carried for so long for that purpose. Remembering it on the way out became foremost in her mind.

Without breaking her step, she dipped and snatched the weapon out of the back, tucking it under her new shirt and vest and wedging it between the strap of her old top and the fur of her back in one fluid motion. The more modern clothing hid the added bulk of the staff, and still allowed it to be reached with relative ease if need be. Since the whole motion was virtually unnoticeable to the vulpine a step ahead, Fox didn't even notice when she rejoined him as he was waiting for the lift.

* * *

"Alright; thanks for the information." 

"Not a problem Mr. Hare; if you'll excuse me though, I gotta get back out front."

Peppy nodded and the security officer left the _Great Fox's _open mainhanger, jogging down the ramp that had extended to the floor of the Starport docking bay and slipping through a door that led to one of the many hallways of the facility.

"What was that all about?" Slippy asked, approaching Peppy from looking over his inoperable, partially dismantled Arwing.

"Hm? Oh, that was just one of the Starport security guards," he explained, Slippy's question catching him while he was thinking about the issue the officer had brought up, "We…may have a problem."

"What's up Pep?" Falco asked, following the toad from the latter's scrapped fighter to the center of the carrier's hanger.

"Well, according to that guard, there's a large group of reporters and newsmen waiting outside the Starport," Peppy replied bluntly, "…That's going to slow us down a bit; the guards say that they can't even see the limo through the amount of people."

"So?" the avian replied, shrugging, "We stop to greet a few fans, answer a coupla questions; just like four years ago. Where's the problem with that?"

"The problem is that, as it is, we're already going to be late," the older hare responded, looking up at the taller Falco, "We can't spend any extra time stopping every few feet to respond to questions; especially since we have Fox's friend to worry about. You know half of the issues they bring up are about why we're still in such a 'questionable' profession, and given her reaction to that a couple hours ago…"

He stopped, catching sight of the missing foxes out of the corner of his eye as they entered through the hanger door, talking carelessly about one thing or another as they traversed the steel floor of the large room. Falco and Slippy saw them as well once they followed Peppy's line of sight, and turned to stare at them as they approached. They were within earshot a few seconds later.

"…So those voices and pictures on the bridge, and in the halls, were all other people in different places?" Krystal asked, looking directly at the vulpine and not noticing the enormity of the room they had just entered.

"Yep," he replied, nodding and facing forward for a moment, intending to continue the conversation but stopping when he saw his teammates' faces, "Er…sorry about that guys; took a little longer than I thought."

Peppy frowned and opened his mouth to reprimand the fox, but opted instead to merely drop his tardiness and move on to the current problem.

As the hare was explaining the situation to Fox, Krystal finally had time to take in her new surroundings, gazing around the room with a sense of awe. Easily the largest room she had been in so far on the ship, at roughly three times the size of the auxiliary bay, she noticed at the same time that it was very worn looking; every wall and the deck were scared with harsh, black scorch streaks and an overall look of dirtiness and wear.

The occupying vessels within the bay weren't much better either; they were all of the same sleek, aerodynamic design, and two of them appeared to be in fine enough flying shape. However, the other two, off to one side of the hanger, were easily inoperable. Pieces of armor and hull were torn away, revealing internal systems that were more or less intact in some cases, and completely gutted in others. Unknown to the vixen, these latter two fighters were subject to scavenging for spare parts for the one remaining active pilot on the team as of her arrival.

It was this pilot that nodded after Peppy finished his explanation, comprehending the situation and committing his mind to finding a way out of it. The whole concept of a crowd for _them_, mercenaries, was pretty strange to him, and if he hadn't been through the gauntlet once before, he would've never believed that any citizen would want to honor a soldier-for-hire.

"Why don't we just have the limo driver pick us up at a side entrance or something?" he asked after little thought, "This complex is huge; there's no way anyone's gonna know which door we come out of."

"True," Peppy replied, thinking for a moment over the seemingly too easy solution, "…Alright; that'll work. I'll go to the lobby out front and see if I can get the driver on a com line; make sure we're ready to go by the time I get back. I don't want to keep the General waiting any longer than we have to."

With that, the hare turned and descended the gradual ramp to the Starport hanger's floor, following the path of the guard that had left earlier and taking the same door, disappearing into the maze of hallways. As soon as the door, tiny in comparison to the rest of the bay, shut all the way, leaving the four alone, Falco turned to Fox.

"What's up with _her_?" he asked, slanting his head in Krystal's direction and inadvertently catching her attention at the same time. She turned from looking around the bay towards him, parting her muzzle to respond but being cut off by her fellow species member.

"What do you mean, Falco?" the vulpine questioned back, knowing where the conversation would end up and dreading its arrival. _'Please Falco,' _he pleaded the avian mentally, _'Don't make a big deal outta it...'_

"Whatdya mean 'what do I mean?'" he replied, busting any hopes Fox might've had about avoiding the issue, "She's got _your _clothes on! What, were you two playing 'dress up' up there or something?"

"Well you weren't expecting her to go strolling through Corneria with what she had on before, did you?"

"No," Falco said, glancing at the vixen in question and back at Fox, "But…give her something else besides our friggin' uniform; she looks like she's one of us."

"That's the point Falco," Fox responded, his annoyance at the avian's complaints showing through in his voice, "The more she looks like she belongs here, the less likely she'll get noticed, and the less likely we'll get asked about her."

"But she's not on the _team_," Falco continued, refusing to give up the point. The pair continued to argue over the subject, neither giving any ground on their point, and both completely forgetting about the one they were fighting about.

Krystal stood off to the side between them, following every aspect of the verbal skirmish and listening to every word spoken. As they continued to dispute the issue, her mind analyzed the details until she came to a conclusion; her presence was the only thing that necessitated the fight. If she wasn't there, the problem simply would've never come up, _'…Am I…a burden to them?...'_

It was a relatively groundless thought, one that understandably didn't hold up for long in her mind as she quickly dismissed it, _'But then why would they let me onto their ship and into their lives like they did,' _she thought, reassuring herself with the reason, _'…Maybe it's just Fox's friend that has a problem with me…but…what did I do that he is taking offense to?'_

"…al?" Fox was saying something to her, but her reverie prevented her from hearing at first, forcing the vulpine to repeat himself, "Hey, Krystal?"

She shook her head and snapped back to the situation, only to realize that the argument had ended, both participants more or less at peace with each other. If the current look Falco was shooting her meant anything though, it was that he still maintained the suspicious, slightly accusing attitude of before. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment as he shrugged and descended the ramp before she turned to Fox and finally responded, asking what he needed her for.

"I just wanted to know if you have everything you need from the ship," he said, now having her full attention, "We gotta close up the _Great Fox_, and once we do, it'll probably be shut for awhile."

"Hm…," she murmured, leaning back unnoticeably in her stance and feeling for the resistance of the staff concealed under her shirt and vest, "Yeah, I think so." After saying it though, her expression changed as she assumed a look of uncertainty and slight worry, her muzzle dipped a little and her tail's idle wagging slowing, "Fox…did I do something wrong to your friend? It seems like I offended him somehow."

"Look," he began, noticing her glance at Falco, "I know that he seems a little…perturbed right now, but-"

"Yo!" the avian in question called out from the Starport docking bay, cutting him off and waving at the pair, "Foxy! Let's go!"

Fox sighed and turned back to the vixen, shaking his head in apology, "Uh, sorry Krystal; but we gotta go. I'll explain later."

* * *

Outside a deserted, barren alley shaded in shadow, a cozy storefront café had just hit its early afternoon slowdown. Its outdoor terrace contained only a handful of patrons; businessmen late to lunch, or others hoping for a quick bite to eat before moving on with their daily schedules. The small and old-fashioned café was fairly out off the beaten path, built into the rear of one of the massive Spaceport docking bays, and as such, there tended to be a sense of casualness between the staff and the customers. The staff would often leave newspapers and the like out for their regulars, and when the patron left, they simply left the reading materials on the modestly adorned patio tables. 

A sudden gust of wind picked up abruptly, surprising several of those eating outdoors as the unexpected air currents pushed anything light enough around with ease; napkins, hats and newspapers were caught up in the draft. Most were easily recovered among soft laughter from the customers, but unbeknownst to those on the sparsely populated terrace, a page from a folded newspaper at an empty table had been torn free by the breeze and blown clear of the empty table it had been lain on.

The sheet of paper tumbled along the ground, slipping through the pickets of a low, decorative fence that enclosed the café patio, and approached the brick corner of the storefront eatery and the neighboring alley. With a final gust, it was sucked right around the bend and into the dank and shady backstreet, pausing on the ground for a brief moment before sliding further into the between-building passage.

It caught in a small crack in the dirty pavement, its sides whipping as the wind continued, until it was yanked free and continued its journey, finally coming to a full rest behind a parked limousine as the airstreams died down. However, as if a trigger was flipped, the automobile started up, its engine revving and a gust of cleaned and filtered exhaust blowing from a port in back near the pavement. This abrupt draft threw the newspaper back into the air towards a door on the side of Starport, skimming the ground until the door hinged open slightly and a booted foot stepped out into the alley, pinning the sheet of paper to the dusty concrete.

* * *

Fox nudged open the side entrance door and peered out into the side-street, careful to keep his face hidden behind the doorframe as his gaze swept the alley. Seeing nobody and nothing out of the ordinary, save the expected limousine, he carefully stepped out into the city, leaving a boot mark on a piece of newspaper that had caught under his foot. A news helicopter soared abruptly over the sky visible between the tops of the two buildings that formed the alley, causing an instinctual freeze in the vulpine as he watched it pass until it was out of sight, hidden from view by the Starport. As soon as it was he relaxed; so far it appeared as though their plan was working. 

"Alright guys," he called back in a loud whisper that was probably overly cautious for the situation, "Let's go."

"Ya know, I still think this is all kinda unnecessary," Falco commented as he led the way out of the Starport for the rest of the team, "What was wrong with the reporters again?"

"Time Falco," Peppy replied, the next one out of the side-entrance, "We don't have time for them."

"Yeah," Slippy continued, piling into the extended automobile after the elder crew member, "Besides; those guys always misquote us on everything. Remember four years ago when they said that Falco said that I was always the cause of trouble in the missions?"

Falco's voice could be heard from inside the stretch, "Er, right…_mis_quote…"

Fox smiled and was about to climb in with them, the secretive movements of before completely forgotten, when the sound of the Starport side door opening one final time caught his attention.

Krystal stepped from the shadows inside the Starport hallway to the shade of the alleyway, her wood and leather sandals clacking softly on the concrete as she caught her first glimpse of a modern city. The dirty backstreet was an unflattering portion of the metropolis for the vixen's initial viewing, but even the unique building materials of the seedy between-structure lane were enough to catch her eye for a moment. _'This all seems so…lifeless,' _she thought, the solid grey walls seeming so stiff and inert compared to what she was used to from the last planet she had stepped foot on.

The helicopter roared overhead again, startling Krystal and breaking her observations of the concrete environment around her; gazing instead at the flying machine above as it passed out of their view. Now that her concentration had been broken, she could finally hear Fox calling her from the extended car, beckoning her over, to which she quickly complied.

The vehicle he was holding the door open to appeared odd to the vixen, humming and occasionally revving like it was, but the sense of urgency that Fox purveyed caused her to cast those thoughts aside and climb through the opened hole into the automobile. The mercenary took a final look around, making sure that their actions had gone undiscovered, before he too joined the rest of the passengers inside the limousine and it pulled out into the public road, leaving behind the rusty and soiled alley.

"I'm not gonna lie; Pepper's definitely regaining some points after stiffin' us a day."

Falco laced his hands together behind his head and reclined in the heavily padded and comfortable limo bench seat, lying sideways on the front, rear-facing seats and leaning back against the window. Peppy chuckled with Slippy from the bench perpendicular to the avian's, agreeing and going further into conversation with him about the General's strange hurry to meet with them, accentuating his speech with hand gestures. However, the vulpine in the back bench didn't pay much attention after the first comment was said, as other things were on his mind; namely, the passenger next to him.

In the ghost image created by the inner reflection of the window next to her, Fox could see Krystal's sapphire eyes gazing into the passing capital city of Corneria, betraying her sense of awe of the metropolis to him. The occasional bump and jostle from the ground-based limousine were enough to draw her attention the first few times they occurred, as she had never ridden in an automobile before, but soon even such a novel thing as that couldn't keep her away from the world outside. However, unknown to the male fox, there was another emotion she felt other than the wonder; an emotion that held a strange sway over her initial thoughts of the city.

Trepidation.

'_This…this is impossible…' _she thought to herself as she continued staring out the glass. Gigantic structured towers of steel and concrete rose immeasurable stories from the ground to the sky, scraping the heavens with their height and glinting in the sun. Cars of every conceivable shape and size crowded the busy through-city streets; revving, honking, and otherwise making themselves audibly known. The people that populated the city on the sidewalks were just as varied as their means of transportation; capturing the vixen's mind with their styles of dress and activities seen through storefront windows.

The shear magnitude of the world she had been thrust into startled her; she hadn't even come to terms with the massive office buildings along their boulevard when the limo reached an intersection, revealing another street of monstrosity-sized structures running as far as she could see. And as much as the city swept away her imagination in wonder, it also ran lines of apprehension deep into her mind. Looming high above her level of vision through the window, the metal constructions seemed almost threatening to one who had never experienced their ilk before. Their tinted glass windows stared darkly back down at her, sending a chill down the vixen's spine.

A truck hurtled by in the opposite lane of the limousine, eliciting a barely stifled yelp from Krystal as she jumped in her seat in surprise. Quickly turning around, she noticed in silent astonishment that none of the other passengers seemed to have reacted to the vehicle like she had; furthermore, none of them seemed to even notice the intimidating metropolis outside. It dawned on her that they were probably used to locations like this, having been born and grown up within Lylat, but the air of indifference that they exuded still surprised her, _'…Will I eventually become accustomed too?'_

Time continued to pass, and Krystal continued to gape at the structural feats of modern construction, but as she did another thought of curiosity made itself known within her conscious; a thought that concerned itself less with the city proper and more with their destination within it.

"…Fox?"

The vulpine was mirroring her previous gaze out the window on the opposite side of the extended car, although his reason was more out of boredom than curiosity. It had fallen fairly quiet inside the limo since their initial arrival from the alleyway, and he didn't want to interrupt what he had perceived to be genuinely interested observation on her part; so he had decided to keep the silence as it was. When he heard his name spoken by the uniquely accented voice though, his head immediately popped off the palm it was braced on and he turned towards her.

"Hm?" he questioned, "What's up, Krystal?"

"Who's this 'Pepper' person you all keep talking about?" she asked, having heard the name many times before but still not knowing exactly what it was he did, only that he was important, "Is he like your king?"

"Heh, not exactly," he replied, letting out a brief laugh at the though of the General as a monarch before continuing, "Although he has certainly ordered us around like one before."

"Oh," she said, her face expressing a flash of an idea as she thought she grasped his identity, "So…he's your commander then?"

"Closer, but still not quite," he responded, happy to be in conversation with the previously silent vixen, "He _is_ the commander of the Cornerian Military, but since we're independent, he doesn't have direct control over us."

Krystal assimilated the information and mulled over it for a moment or two before coming up with the next logical solution, "…He gives you your missions then?"

"That's it," Fox smiled, bobbing his head.

"Hm," she replied with an interested tone, "So why are you visiting him now?"

"Well, he wants to talk to us about the Dinosaur Planer job," he said, looking forward as he recounted the reasons Pepper had given them, "And then I think he said something about another possible contract."

Krystal nodded with comprehension, but mentally winced on the inside at the mention of a contract, reminding her of her host's mercenary status. However, before the vixen could ask anymore questions, the limousine slowed down and came to a stop outside of a huge building, tremendous even by the standards of the rest of the city. To everyone but Krystal, the driver's announcement of their location was all but unnecessary; they had memorized the very layout of the building due to the frequency with which they visited. However, to the cerulean female fox, it just confirmed what she had suspected: they had arrived at their destination.

Fox was the first to move, opening the rear door opposite her and stepping out onto the concrete island that separated the building's private loop from the main road. The initial blast of ambient city sensory stimuli stunned Krystal for a moment as they washed over her; a cacophony of downtown sounds and reverberations played strangely in the vixen's sensitive ears, its unfamiliarity matched only by the alien scents that flowed over her muzzle as she curiously sniffed the metropolitan air.

It wasn't until a discrete cough from Peppy, who was next in line behind her to exit, that she realized she was holding up the team and climbed out of the limo through the door Fox had opened and was now holding. As she emerged from the limousine and into Corneria City, Krystal felt the foreign urban landscape surround and embrace her, almost as if welcoming the vixen to the world that was so strange to her.

A few pedestrians had stopped to watch by the time the rest of the group exited the vehicle, pointing and talking unheard to whoever they were with, the speech lost in the whirlwind of city sounds before the team could hear it. Fox regarded them for a moment before turning back to the limo, closing the back door and rapping his knuckles twice on the window. Taking the signal, the driver accelerated out of the private loop, pausing briefly at the main road before turning onto it and driving out of sight, leaving the team at the Cornerian Military HQ.

As they approached the building, more than its shear height Krystal noticed a strange collection of letters and symbols, sitting atop the large, multi-door entrance. The initials 'C.M.H.Q' were carved and colored in large red font, and just above those was the Army's insignia; a pair of swords crossed midway with the planet of Corneria underneath the point of intersection. The building soared higher and higher as she followed the team to the building, until, from almost directly underneath, it seemed as though the structure stretched to the sky. However, before any real fear had a chance to set in, they were through the row of glass doors, and the outside city was left behind.

A breeze of conditioned air greeted the vixen as she filed into the Headquarters building after the rest of the team, cutting off the warm world outside and opening for her a cooler environment indoors. Her curious eyes drank in the features of the new setting; the reflective marble walls, the glistening, water-spouting fountain, and the occasional uniformed officer walking the open, second-story gallery going about their day-to-day business among the maze of offices.

"How's it going today gentlemen?"

The guard's statement brought her attention back to her present location at a roped off security checkpoint, just inside the main entrance. She peered up from behind the rest of the team to get a better look at the speaker, a younger collie dressed in a soldier's uniform, standing next to an empty rack and a strange, door-sized frame. As she got a clear line of sight at him, he did at her as well, and quickly mended his greeting.

"Ah, and lady as well," he said, tapping his angled, non-combat cap and smiling, "My apologies, ma'am."

She looked at Fox with a hint of confusion, unsure of how to respond, to which he understood and quickly picked up the conversation.

"Not too bad," he remarked, matching the guard's grin for a moment before Peppy intervened and got down to business.

"I apologize for the rudeness," the hare said, drawing the soldier's attention, "But we're already late for a meeting, so if we could hurry this along…"

"Say no more, sir," he replied, nodding with understanding and checking his digital clipboard, "That means you all must be the Star Fox team then, right?"

"Yep," Fox responded, pulling out an ID card and handing it to the guard, who compared it with the information on his pad, "So, how's the General doing these days?"

"Eh, he's good for the most part," the guard answered, handing back the card, "But this stuff with Katina has been kinda stressing him out lately." Then, without breaking his conversational tone, he continued, gesturing to the empty weapons storage rack, "If you could leave your side-arms here."

The team drew their individual pistols from the belt holsters, Falco from a custom sheath on his hip, and took turns placing them inside the individual compartments on the rack, each of them closed and locked by the guard after they did so. Exempted was Krystal, who didn't carry one of the guns on her, and whose unorthodox weapon was concealed enough to not be noticed by the soldier.

"Katina?" Fox questioned, keeping the dialogue alive as they filed through the weapons detector frames, "What's going on with Katina?"

"You mean you haven't heard?" the guard asked, nodding with approval when they all passed through the detector cleanly and motioning for them to follow him. The vulpine shook his head 'no' and turned to his teammates, who shrugged and responded similarly, which prompted the soldier to continue, "Ah, well; the General'll probably fill you in more, but let's just say that we're not on the best of terms right about now."

"Really?" Slippy asked, coming up beside the guard as they turned from the main lobby down a side hallway, "What happened?"

"Sorry sir, but I can't answer that," he replied, the procession reaching a bank of elevators along the corridor wall, "'Cause honestly, I don't exactly know. There's a lot of speculation goin' on about the whole situation."

The soldier approached the touch-panel for one of the lifts and activated it as he spoke, causing the double doors to part and reveal the elevator car. After the team finished boarding, and before Slippy had a chance to respond to the guard's answer, he reached inside and pressed the General's floor button, "You'll probably find out soon enough though."

"Alright; thank you," Peppy finished as the doors began to close.

"My pleasure, sir," he responded, returning to his post out front once the lift was sealed.

As the elevator began its long-distance ascent, Krystal gripped the brass railings that ran around the car, not sure of what to expect. At first, the lift seemed tame enough, sounding and feeling much like the smaller ascent in the similar system aboard the _Great Fox. _However, by some unseen trigger, the elevator suddenly ramped up its velocity drastically, rocketing the team skyward and frightening the vixen with the sound and sensation of speed.

Krystal squeezed her eyes shut and desperately resisted the urge to scream, instead opting to merely tighten her grip on the railings until her knuckles turned white. Her position at the back of the enclosure spared her the scrutiny of the Star Fox team, but the lack of notice did nothing to alleviate her tensed feelings any. Luckily for the vixen, however, the gauge on the top of the elevator doors neared the number of their destined floor, and soon the lift slowed down and came to a stop.

The doors opened and the team stepped out into the hallway; similar in appearance to the one they had just left, but over a hundred stories up from their last position. Fox glanced back at his cerulean companion, noticing that she appeared to be slightly physically affected by the elevator ride and making an effort to ask her about it once she exited the lift. But, before he could even part his muzzle, he was interrupted by the professional curiosity of a receptionist.

"Can I help you, sir?" the feline asked in a friendly voice, sitting behind a raised circular desk just opposite the elevator bank.

"Er, yeah," Fox responded, belaying where his attention was as he turned back towards her from Krystal, "We're here for a meeting with the General."

"Ah, you must be the Star Fox team then," she said with a smile, to which the vulpine nodded, "He's in the last room down this hall."

Fox followed her motion and nodded again, "Thanks."

"You're welcome," she replied, looking at the rest of the group as they filed past her desk. When the vixen passed her though, the feline noticed something off and checked a pad on her counter. Finding what she was looking for, she called out to the vulpine, "Ah…Mr. McCloud?"

His orange ears perked when he heard his name and he stopped in his tracks, turning and making his way back to her desk while the team continued to the office, "Yeah?"

"I'm afraid she's going to have to stay outside the General's office," she reported, her face expressing a degree of genuine sympathy as she then spoke to Krystal, "I'm sorry, but it's simply a security protocol; nothing personal."

"That's okay," the female fox responded, drawing a quick look from the vulpine before he too relented and thanked the receptionist for her warning. They both jogged a short distance to catch up with the rest of the team as they continued down the corridor, the murmur of conversation from the three further down the hallway and the clacking of the vixen's sandals the only sounds audible.

The passage itself was surprisingly plainly adorned given its residence; the potted plants and marble floors made it indistinguishable from the many other high-end office buildings spread throughout the city. A barrier of practically solid windows made up the outside wall, a partition that Krystal made a point of staying clear of; realizing that if the mere sight of the buildings frightened her, than the view from within one of the monstrous towers would terrify.

It wasn't much a walk to the end office and in no time they arrived at Pepper's door, an event followed by Peppy knocking on the metal separating his workplace from the hallway. His efforts were met by a muffled 'come in' from the General just before the door automatically slid open, and all but the pair of foxes entered the room.

"I'm sorry Krystal," Fox said, standing just outside the room while the others went in, "But they won't let those they don't know into the General's office."

"Don't worry about it, Fox," she replied, causing a sense of relief to appear within the vulpine as she went on, "I understand the need for security for such an important person. I'll just wait out here."

"Alright…" he answered, still unsure of the wisest course of action to take, but content with the one that seemed to be playing out, "If you need anything though, I'm sure Pepper won't mind a small interruption."

"Thanks, but I think I'll be fine," the vixen stated, noticing and taking a seat on a padded bench adjacent to the General' office outside.

"Okay…" he said, trailing off and turning to enter the room where the remaining three members of the team waited, along with the General himself.

The office was, as it appeared in the message Pepper sent them earlier, likened to the hallway leading to it in modesty; other than a few telltale ornaments, one would have no idea that it belonged to one of the highest officers in the Cornerian Military. Even the older hound's uniform was fairly casual, just the basic scarlet dress coat; again, no flare or unnecessary ostentation. Fox noticed he was looking a little more tired than usual though, and the guard's words about General came back to the vulpine's mind.

"Star Fox, it's good to see you all again," Pepper started as soon as Fox took the final of four seats in front of his desk, "It's certainly been awhile since we've all met in person."

"It sure has, General," Peppy replied, matching his weary grin with one of his own, "What's it been now…four years?"

"Ah…really now? Four years?" he said, leaning back in his chair and staring off into space for a moment, recounting the interval between their last visit and the present, "Yes, that's right, the Lylat War."

"Hey, if it helps any," Falco remarked with a smirk, "You don't look a day over three and a half, General."

"Falco Lombardi," Pepper beamed, taking the comment in stride, "Well, it certainly has been a day for surprises, hasn't it? I'm glad to see that your absence from the team hasn't changed your attitude any."

"Better believe it," he replied, the joking smile still on his face.

The General chuckled for a moment or two before continuing, turning to Fox, "Alright then, down to business. I _have_ called you all here for the possibility of another contract, the details of which we will discuss later on. But first I want you to tell me about what happened with Sauria; we still don't know a tremendous amount about the planet or why it did what it did. I'm sure your report will be of great use for us, so don't leave any details out."

Fox let out a sigh and said nothing for a few seconds, gathering the great amount of events and descriptions in his head before speaking, starting the long process of filling the General in on everything he could recall, "Well…when I first arrived on the planet, I thought I had been thrown back a millennia or fifty in time; I mean there was _nothing _there; just a field and a few natives…"

* * *

'_Fox and his friends sure have been in there a long time…'_

Krystal sighed and leaned against the bare wall on the backless bench, the concealed staff digging comfortably and familiarly into her upper back. Normally, the air-conditioned hallway and chilled marble stone would've induced shivering by now, but the new clothes Fox had given her insulated her surprisingly well. _'These are actually becoming comfortable,' _she thought, shifting around in her seat and feeling the artificial fabric brush across her fur, _'I guess Fox was right.'_

She felt her muscles begin to stiffen from being in the same position for a long time, the tightness edging on her until she finally relented and stood up, stretching her body briefly before slowly pacing the corridor around the office, getting the blood flow back in her veins. Noticing the receptionist as the only other occupant of the hallway, she considered for a second the possibility of conversing with her before rejecting the idea, still intimidated by the new world she was now inhabiting.

Instead, she filled the need for a stimulus by approaching the window-wall across from the General's office, having built up enough courage to dismiss her earlier fears and curious as to what the view was like from such a large building. Placing her hands against the cool glass and looking straight out past her reflection, all she could see was the bright blue sky and the lazily drifting clouds, in addition to the tops of a few nearby skyscrapers. The whole panorama of the atmosphere was very peaceful and calming in addition to its novelty to the vixen; quite the opposite of what she had expected such a sight to be, and it soothed her nerves of the boredom that had begun to set in. Then she looked down.

Almost immediately Krystal was struck with a strange sense of floating and light-headiness as the shaded landscape below struggled to come into focus. Far beneath her, she could barely make out the shapes of machines and people, the likes of which she had seen on the way to the building she was staring wide-eyed out of now. It all seemed so surreal to her, being almost level with the clouds and gazing down on the unfamiliar planet below which was, from her current height, seemingly composed solely from metal. It was as though the line of reality and what was possible in the cerulean vixen's head had been skewed.

Krystal felt her forehead make contact with the pane, unaware that she had been leaning forward, and for a flash of an instant felt like she was falling; plummeting through the mist to the world below. With a sharp inhale prompted by the dreamlike sensation, she jerked her head back from the window and stood there, braced against the glass and regaining her focus, unsure of what had just happened.

As much as the experience had startled the vixen though, she couldn't help but feel a little thrilled by it as she sat back down on the padded bench; even as her head continued to swim.

* * *

Pepper leaned back in his chair as the vulpine fell quiet after reporting his last sentence, breathing out a sigh, "Well I'll be damned…Andross was still alive all this time?" 

Fox shook his head and clarified, "Not quite alive, sir; he must've found a way to preserve his spirit or something, and then used the Krazoa to revive himself. I'm still confused onthe wholeidea of itmyself."

"Heh, I remember back when someone used to die, and they actually stayed _dead_," Falco commented with a wry grin, "Those were the days, eh General?"

"Yeah…" Pepper responded quietly, the hound's mind locked deep in contemplation. His eyes lost their focus for a moment as he forgot his current situation in pursuit of a mental concept, before shaking his head clear of whatever he was thinking and returning to reality, "Well, I guess that wraps up the debriefing; I'd like to once again offer you my gratitude for your services to Corneria and the entire Lylat System…for the second time."

He paused briefly to let his thanks sink in before continuing, "Which, in turn, brings me to the other reason I called you all the way up here. While you were gone, several things have happened around the system; most of them bad."

"Bad?" Slippy repeated as a question, "What do you mean?"

Pepper took a deep breath and continued, his expression and manner becoming more direct and dramatic as he addressed the team. "I…suppose there is no real, official way to say this, so I'll just be blunt. …Corneria and Katina are currently only a few steps away…," he said, looking down for a moment, almost as if in disappointment, before returning his eyes back to the team and speaking in a softer tone.

"…From war."

* * *

A/N: Alright, first off, my sincerest apologies to all those who were waiting for this chapter; lord knows it took an ungodly amount of time to fix. I say 'fix' instead of 'write' because, as I mentioned last time, I already have several chapters already typed out. The problem is that, contrary to what I thought would happen, re-editing the chapters is a lot tougher than just writing, and it therefore takes longer to complete. To give y'all an example, the first draft of this chapter, which I wrote late last year, was roughly 17 Microsoft Word pages long. 

This completed draft is 28.

So, unfortunately to those who I very egotistically assume care (all five of you), the next two or three entries are probably gonna take similar lengths of time to complete. However, there _is _some good news…

…I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Gei(shot)

…Sorry. But seriously, the good news is that, at least for me, school's out, and I'll have a bit more time to type.

Review Replies:

(For each review's actual review, go to the review page: most are way too long to actually copy here)

_Fox the Cave II_

Ya know that light-headed feeling you get when it feels like you're hallucinating or something? Yeah, well that's what I got as I read that review. I know that it had to be a temporary lapse in reviewing ability, but even if they were padded a bit; coming from you those compliments mean so much man. Thanks a lot for the review FtC; that made my whole friggin' month right there.

But really dude; a baby tiger? It couldn't have been something more ferocious like…an adult tiger? Or a lion? A liger perhaps…ah well; at least my guts are going to a good cause. Thanks again dude.

_Antigravity 5-1-0_

Hey man, your honesty is exactly what I'm askin' for here, and the fact that you feel truly about what you write in your review just adds a bit more onto the already massive heap of respect I have for you. And don't worry about the 'Post-SFA stories' and having seen them all; I'm pretty sure that within a few chapters, I'll have veered off of any well-beaten path as far as plot-lines go.

I also think I've fixed the overly dialogue-lead-ness in this chapter, but as the writer I can't be 100 positive on that. And in addition, that 'filler' problem won't happen again either. Honestly, I think I was just a little nervous about the chapter and what you (all readers) would think about it, so I resorted back to what I used to use for middle school oral presentations: the sympathy plea. Ya know, when you do that little nervous laugh before you start and say something to the teacher like, 'uh yeah, I forgot to check over my notes last night, so…er…sorry in advance for-', and just go on like that. Seriously, thanks for calling me out on that AG; won't happen again man.

And if you don't mind a bit of publicity for your fic, I gotta recommend Diaries of a Mercenary's Son (DoaMS) as an excellent read. I can honestly say that it is easily one of the best on the site right now, and no; I'm not getting paid to say that. Hey, if nothing else, it'll give you something to do while eagerly awaiting the next chapter of The War Within, right? ...Right?

(Cricket chirps)

…Ahem…moving on (thanks again AntiGrav).

_Jedor_

Wohoo! New reviewer! I'm glad that you like it so far Jedor, but don't worry about not being a writer and reviewing; there's a reason I allow anonymous responses. You don't have to know a single thing about being a good author to be a good critic; it's just like…uh…food; you don't have to be a cook to know what you like and don't like about a dish. Thanks for the review J; and don't be a stranger 'round here.

_Redbay_

Whoo doggy, Redbay; I think you outdid yourself this time. That is one HUGE review right there. Heh, guess I asked for it though didn't I? Although I think, unless I'm completely wrong and sorry if I am, that you're making just one, major point here.

I'll admit that at first, I wasn't quite sure what you meant by saying that I should 'tell instead of show'. However, I think I finally got the gist of it, and if what I think you mean is what you really mean, then this chapter should have some improvements in that field. I do like the re-write you made a lot, but there _is _a reason I included that specific line in there. However, I'm afraid I have to leave the reason vague like that.

You have a real point there with the 'not giving it away too soon' part as well; I guess writing is a lot like acting in a way. It's all about the timing in some cases (I'm on a roll with these analogies today). And trust me Redbay; I know and fully appreciate the reviewing power examples can lend; especially from one as well-versed in writing as yourself.

Lastly, the part with Fox and blushing and the like. The thing is, I've always viewed the characters in the Star Fox universe as having human qualities first, animalistic qualities second. For example; Fox's overall body structure seems more like a person than any actual fox I've seen. So, you can see where human emotional expressions would transfer over as well (at least in my mind). However, in this chapter I've made an effort to include more mammalian responses as well as the standard human ones (ear and tail movements, for instance), and I think that once again, you have a point there; the addition of other types of responses has upped the quality a bit (I hope). Thanks for the advice Rb.

_SF Ghost_

Damn man; you sure know how to make a kid feel good inside. Thanks for all the kind words SF; it really means a lot to me. And, it's funny you should mention Fox MC's story and my fic's similarities to it; his was the fic that got me started on this whole 'splendid endeavor' (not to mention giving me the idea for these replies). When I was just a reader, browsing through the FF site, his story caught my eye immediately and set the bar for all others to match; let's just say that to me, very few did. Eventually, the lack of comparably good fics got to me, and the idea that would eventually lead to this story first appeared in my head. While it's obvious that I'm nowhere near the incredible talent that went into 'Echoes of the Future', to be compared to that makes me feel all fuzzy inside. My gratitude SF Ghost.

**Review Disclaimer**: If my response to your review (both here and in the future) is a little on the short side compared to others, it's only because the points you bring up have already been brought up in earlier reviews (and thus, have already been answered). No offense intended or anything.

So there we go, number three in the books. …er, the achieves…whatever this site has as a storage system. The point is it's in there. And hopefully, it was worth the wait. If not, sorry for wasting your time reading it (although if you got this far, something must be going right…or not).

And one final note on reviews and their potential writers; please, don't be intimidated by those four juggernauts of reviewing power (you know who you are). I appreciate quick, one-liners just as much as I do the longer, thought-out ones. I guess all I'm trying to say here is that you (the reader) shouldn't feel any pressure to write long reviews if you don't want to. And, for that matter, you shouldn't feel any pressure to review _period_ if you don't want to. ...Hopefully, that makes some sense.

Until next time; peace y'all.

-Irish Redd

Next Chapter: Crisis


	4. Chapter 4: Crisis

Chapter 4: Crisis

"What!" Fox exclaimed in disbelief, ears perked and every feature on his face expressing his shear and momentarily unconatined shock, "How could something like that possibly happen? Corneria and Katina're allies!"

"Relax Fox; he's just pullin' our leg," Falco responded, attempting to calm the vulpine down while appealing to the one behind the desk, as much for his friend's sake as his own confidence, "Right General? You're just screwin' with us here. There's…there's no way we're actually going to war with Katina."

"I'm…afraid not, boys," Pepper replied, a melancholy mood emanating from the hound and spreading to fill the office, "If we don't do something soon with this whole mess, it might just come down to it."

The hopefully doubting faces of the younger members of the team faded as they realized the seriousness and legitimacy of the General's response; a light-headedness clouding their thoughts as the consequences of his announcement set in.Peppy, however, never even got his hopes up that he was joking; the hare knew Pepper for far too long to not have learned his mannerisms by now, and picked up on his somberness immediately. As such, his mind had enough time to recover from the surprise that plagues any person's mentality when they learn of such a horrible thing as possible war, and was able to ask for an explanation while the others were still essentially reeling.

"Pepper," the hare began, coolly and evenly, "This couldn't have happened overnight; how did things get so bad between the two planets without basic diplomacy stepping in and heading them off?"

"Trust me Peppy," he responded, mirroring his colleague's casual manner in regards to names, "We've tried; we've tried every possible solution in the book and none of them have yielded any tangible form of success. Which…leads me to the ultimate reason why I asked you all to come; should you choose to accept it, I may have another contract for you."

Fox's disquiet meditation halted when he heard the word 'contract', and he lifted his eyes from their previous lost-in-thought stare that he held while contemplating the possibility of all out system warfare. His reason for doing so wasn't as materialistic as Falco's similar reaction though; to him, the idea of a contract meant that he and his team could contribute something to put a stop to the escalating diplomatic issues between his home world and Katina.

Turning to each of his teammates in turn, and acknowledging their apparent willingness to accept, he faced back to Pepper, shrugging, "Of course General; I can't guarantee we'll take it, but it never hurts to hear the details."

The older hound nodded and a smile tugged at his weary lips, "I knew I could count on you Fox." Then, rather abruptly, his demeanor became more business-like and official as he reached into a drawer in his desk, pulling out a manila folder and opening it to reveal several photographs and documents, "Let's get right to it then."

Pushing the folder and its contents to the front of the desk so that they were easily visible to the team sitting before it, Pepper revealed a miniature holographic projector, inlaid flush with the desk. As if on command, the emitter activated soon after it was uncovered, the two-dimensional picture it created wavering for a moment or two before it straightened itself out and formed into a map of the Lylat System. Without wasting any time, or even letting the shock of the previous announcement fade off the team's faces, the General dove right in to the explanation he had prepared.

"About a month ago," he began, speaking from behind the projection on his desk, "Several backwater stations, belonging to both Corneria and Katina, were attacked by fighters and small craft of the same make and insignia as those of the opposite planet." On the Lylatian map, several green and red icons appeared, dotting the system and sprouting a line or two of information as they materialized. "This didn't cause a lot of concern though; many of our lower level military ships, snub fighters, older corvettes and the like, are widely available on the open and black markets, and the insignias can easily be painted on. Same with Katina. This concept of military impersonation has been around for quite awhile since we began selling army vessels to the public, so it initially wasn't much of a problem. It was the events that followed that the real trouble began."

"A week passed, and no new attacks were made by those thought to be responsible for the initial raids," he continued, shrugging a little as he did, "We just assumed that was the end of it." The various red dots disappeared just as Pepper began the next sentence, replaced instead by a red 'x', just outside of the notorious Sector Y. "Then, a sparsely guarded Katinian supply convoy was surprised and attacked in open space en route to a research station near Sector Y. This time, in addition to the refitted military fighters from before, several larger 'Cornerian' ships were part of the assault force as well; mainly Frigates."

"Now, as you can imagine, the news of this attack caused a great deal of worry for us; it isn't easy to obtain a planetary military's warship, even for some of the larger pirate organizations. However, it wasn't their presence that was the strangest part; it was their make." Pepper finally utilized the folder and its contents at this point, pulling a glossy sheet of photograph paper from it and placing it at the front of the desk for the team to see, "All of the larger vessels were of a model consistent with the Cornerian standard of about a decade ago."

"So…what," Falco interrupted, a bit confused at the General's last statement and looking up from the blueprints and renders he was being shown, "Are you saying some pirates hijacked a bunch of military ships…and waited _ten _years to use 'em?"

"We're still unsure of how or why they were there," he responded to the avian's question, "Only that they were aggressive…and merciless. A sole freighter made it to the research station intact, and the holovids it took during the attack were quite clear; a group of Cornerian military craft assaulted and destroyed a non-belligerent Katinian convoy." Pepper paused for a moment as he appeared to be considering something, "So clear in fact…if I didn't know better, I would say the events taking place in the videos were actually legit."

Whatever was bothering him was quickly shaken from his head though, and he pressed on with the briefing, speaking as the projection of the Lylat System faded into one of a finely dressed panther, apparently an official of some sort, "Obviously, this event concerned the Katinian Chancellor, here, a great deal. He immediately demanded to know why the Cornerian Navy destroyed his convoy, and when we explained we had no part in the attack, he wasn't satisfied. He initiated a vast refit and expansion of the entire Katinian Military, and began sending armed escorts with all convoys. We tried to tell him he was over-reacting, that this could've been some well-coordinated pirate raid; but he didn't give the idea any thought." The projector reverted back to the map of Lylat, but this time zoomed in a moment later on a section of the Meteos asteroid belt.

"Then," he said, maintaining the authoritative voice but allowing the slightest trace of emotion seep in, "Another attack, of similar characteristics to the first in Sector Y, was reported around Bottz Station in Meteos; once again, only a single personal freighter escaped. The records from that ship painted essentially the same picture; Cornerian craft opening fire on a Katinian convoy without provocation."

"The Chancellor wasted no time after the second attack on his ships, ordering the immediate removal of all Cornerians living on Katina, and the recall of all Katinians living abroad; using the excuse that he was 'trying to protect his people'. Those Cornerians that didn't leave fast enough…were imprisoned. Efforts have been made for their release, but to no avail." The General then turned the projector off and leaned forward over the space that its picture used to occupy, pressing his fingers together in a steeple and leaning on his elbows, "But something didn't seem right about everything; he was moving much too quickly and aggressively for someone who had no prior knowledge of the attacks. Even the assaults_ themselves _seemed to occur under suspicious circumstances. We reviewed the tapes recovered from the survivors of both attacks, and came to the conclusion that the Chancellor was _staging_ these events."

"Hold on General," Fox stated, halting Pepper's explanation for a second, "That doesn't make any sense; why would the Chancellor do something like that? I…I don't get it."

Pepper nodded, as if expecting the question, "At first we thought the same thing; there was no logical reason as to why he would want to make us out to be aggressors. Nothing in the past would suggest hostilities either; we've always been each others' top allies. Then, after we reviewed some surveillance records, we noticed some…_peculiar_ behavior from the Chancellor himself during the previous few months." He pulled a few documents, clipped together at the corner, from manila folder and set them aside, showing the relevance of the mostly text pages to the topic at hand, "At first they were all fairly innocent occurrences; he became a bit more reclusive, canceled a few public appearances; basic political things like that. Nothing that was really suspicious."

"Then, through some sources we have on the planet, it came to light that he had broke the old, post-Lylat War Selmoss Peace Pact by constructing a few additional warships past the limit set by the treaty. Once again, this wasn't too significant; _we'd _actually broken the arbitrary number a few years ago, but it represented a step up in suspicion. The problem came when many members of his cabinet, specifically those who held public stances against many of his newer ideas and legislation, went missing. Upon the most reluctant of interplanetary investigation, most were found dead, victims of apparent 'suicides'. We have our suspicions about the legitimacy of these findings as well, but I'll move on for the sake of time."

The team sat in a state of muted interest and disbelief as the General continued, bewildered and utterly riveted by what he was telling them, "Soon, the Chancellor began passing laws that gave him and his newly appointed cabinet more and more power. The citizenry was more or less oblivious to his increased influence over their lives, and didn't resist the changes at all. And that," Pepper sighed, "Brings us back to the first of the 'Cornerian' attacks."

"The details get a little foggy after that initial assault, as we lost contact with our agents on Katina around the same time as the first backwater attacks; their disappearance has only added to our concern that the Chancellery is becoming increasingly unstable. Honestly," he shrugged, "We're not sure what to expect at this point. One thing that we _do_ know for sure though is that several hundred Cornerians are still being held against their will on Katina. The Chancellor has refused to release them, claiming they're spies, and in response, we've put up a trade embargo until their release. Katina desperately needs many of our natural resources for lack of their own, and has threatened hostility if we don't resume trade, which…is where we stand as of now."

The team sat in stunned silence as the General completed his briefing; nobody had even come close to expecting anything like the situation Pepper had just outlined when they first heard of issues between the two planets. Wave after wave of inward surprise and awe splashed over them as the hound explained the situation, with some even experiencing the beginnings of the emotion known as worry. Nobody liked the idea of war, and they all understood the heaviness of the possibility of it in their system.

Except for Falco. While he had experienced a lesser form of the emotions felt by the rest of the team, and they were all genuine, he had a different primary reason for paying attention, "So why're _we_ here?"

Another smiled pulled at the General's mouth as he heard this, almost as if he was comforted by the familiarly blunt nature of the avian, "Well, only a few days ago, we tried to contact the Chancellor and set up a peace meeting of sorts, to try to take a step or two back in the rising hostilities between our governments. The problem is that since he cut off all outside communication lines to and from Katina, again saying that he was trying to protect his people, we were only able to make contact with the actual Chancellor's office."

"But…why is that bad?" Peppy questioned, scratching his chin in thought, "Isn't that what you would want if you're making a peace offering?"

"Not necessarily," The General replied, "Since he was the only one who heard our offer, he could easily turn it down and proclaim to the public that we never said it at all; which is exactly what he did. He didn't even mention it and kept up his propaganda campaign against us to the Katinian populace. As soon as we figured this out, we decided to try offering a lowering of tensions again, but this time, in a more…round-about fashion." Pepper grinned, his facial features showing his pride in what he was to say next, "We _borrowed _one of their com relay satellites and broadcast the same message as before, this time on every holovid in every home across Katina. With no choice but to accept or look like a war-monger, the Chancellor reluctantly agreed to a peace summit on Titania."

"Why Titania?" Fox asked rapidly, attempting to slip the question in before he went on, "Couldn't you find anything more…hospitable for a conference that concerns the well being of the entire system?"

"Well it's the only logical place if you think about it," Pepper elaborated, gesturing with his hand and speaking in a 'matter of fact' tone, "It has to be a planet, as a space station would be too risky. It can't be a heavily populated world like Fortuna, Zoness or Macbeth because too many things could go wrong. It can't be Aquas due to lack of land and Venom is…well, that's obvious; since it certainly can't be Corneria or Katina for neutrality's sake, that leaves only Titania."

The vulpine nodded in comprehension at the simple logic used as the General went on, "The agreement is that each party will send one capital ship, without further warship or fighter escort, and that the captains of the ships will conduct the actual peace talks in an independent research facility on the surface."

Falco sighed and spoke again, this time with apparent exhaustion, "Again General, why are _we_ here?"

If the General was disturbed on any level at the avian's lack of respect or reverence for a man of his stature, he didn't show it in the least. He merely faced Falco and responded directly to him, "It has been agreed upon by both sides that a neutral group is necessary. A team of people that owes no loyalty to either side, and gains nothing from disrupting the peace talks. Preferably armed so as to double as a security force." Pepper turned his head slightly, drawing the rest of the team into his field of vision, "Take a guess at who that is."

Understanding pulsed in each of their minds as the four seated in front of the General finally understood their role in the event he was describing; several questions still floated through their thoughts, but at least now they knew what their purpose was. He went on before any of them could speak in reply.

"In addition to the moral reward of helping to avert a major interplanetary crisis, and possibly saving the entire Lylat System…again; you will also be reimbursed monetarily. The exact amount is still undecided at this time, given the abruptness of the need for your services, but suffice to say; it'll be of a proper quantity."

"How much is 'a proper quantity'?" Falco asked, raising an eyebrow and speaking with a slightly suspicious tone.

"It'll be…enough," Pepper stated rigidly in response, moving on, "Also, if you're willing to accept the mission, we would like to ask you a…well, a favor I guess."

Fox leaned forward a bit in his chair, already knowing in his heart that they would end up taking the mission and curious as to what the hound could mean by his request, "Sure General, anything."

Pepper smiled as the vulpine agreed, drawing the conclusion himself that they were likely to take on the assignment, "Excellent; you always seem to come through for us, Fox."

The General immediately typed in a new series of commands to the keyboard on his desk, loading another program into the projector before pressing the 'execute' key. Soon, the visual device sprung once more to life, creating a shaded outline of a rotating three-dimensional image at eye level above the desktop. "Now, as you all know," he began, "Our 'R and D' department is well known for their innovations and advances in military technology. They're responsible for the creation and implementation of virtually every warship we have in operation. Recently though, they've been working on something…special."

The General waited a few moments for the suspense to build before continuing, looking at each of the seated mercenaries in turn. As he spoke, the click of a keystroke could be heard, followed closely by the de-shading of the projected object, revealing a ship that bore a resemblance to the Star Fox team's primary fighter, "We've been developing a couple new prototypes based on the standard Arwing design. They have completed all of their basic trails with better than expected results, and all they need now is a little field testing."

Fox's eyes lit up, as he knew exactly where the General was heading; it was how they had received the team's original Arwings back during the Lylat War. They had been given the Cornerian military's latest top-secret fighters for the entirety of their battles with Venom as an incentive to fight, in addition to the money. Since the end of the war though, the Cornerian Military had dropped any and all interest in the Arwing program, for some reason content with letting the Star Fox team own the only four operational ships known to exist.

Why, the vulpine had never been able to figure out, although he suspected it had something to do with financial backing, or lack thereof. To put it simply, the Arwing was expensive. One craft cost roughly the same as a fully loaded warship, and to a planetary navy, a warship was much more valuable than a single advanced fighter. Since the Cornerian government was nearly bankrupt after the Lylat War, the Star Fox team had accepted the Arwings, which were technically on loan during the conflict for testing, as payment in place of a good chunk of their reward cash.

"If you are willing, we'd like you to take each of the prototypes for a trial run or two," he went on, the image floating above the projector fading into a second fighter, which was also unique in design, despite the Arwing's obvious influence. "While I doubt you'll need them for this assignment, you can at least get in a test flight on the way down to the surface of Titania, and back up after the conference is over."

"We'd…," Fox stuttered, overcome with all that was being thrown his way, "We'd be honored, sir."

"So you'll take the contract then?" Pepper asked with a bit of audible eagerness, hoping that the last bit about the new fighters might've been enough to push the team over the edge and into accepting the job.

The merc captain leaned back in his chair and looked at his teammates, already knowing his own opinion on the matter. Turning to Slippy, he was glad to see the toad's enthusiastic attitude in favor of the mission, showcased by his vigorous nodding and grin. Peppy seemed to be positive as well, offering a subtle and silent 'thumbs-up' in response to Fox's unasked question of whether or not he wanted to accept. When the vulpine turned to Falco, he saw the avian with his arms crossed in a relaxed position; the avian returned Fox's questioning gaze with a stare of his own.

"Hey man," he smirked, "As long as we're gettin' paid 'enough'." The last word was obviously meant to highlight the hound's previous use of it, but nobody paid any particular attention to it.

The fox smiled and nodded, facing back towards Pepper and shrugging, "You bet, General; just show us where to sign."

"Great," he stated cheerfully in suppressed elation at the team's decision, offering a hand over the desk to the vulpine who took it and gave a firm shake, "I'm glad to hear it, Fox m'boy; I can't tell you how much better I feel about this conference now that we have a neutral party we know we can trust."

Then, abruptly, as if he had just remembered something, the General broke the shake and glanced at his watch, letting out a 'huh' as he realized the time. Reaching into a drawer, he pulled out a small disk and slid it across the top of the desk, stopping just short of the edge. He suddenly seemed eager to get the meeting over with, "The rest of the mission details, including all of the pertinent documents in the folder, are on this disk," he said, tapping the object with his index finger, "The meeting is set for fairly early, around eight, in the morning, so make sure you take the necessary precautions in order to arrive at the research station on Titania in time. I'd suggest leaving around five or so."

Fox was the first to notice this sudden change in tone caused apparently from knowledge of the current time, furrowing his eyebrows for a moment in concern before speaking, "Uh, General? Is there something wrong?"

"Hm?" he replied before waving his hand in dismissal of the possibility, and laughing a little as he explained, "Oh, no; I just have another appointment to get to soon; I still have to brief _our_ ambassadors to the conference, actually. I apologize for the abruptness."

"Not a problem, Pepper," the hare responded, similarly dismissing the General with a gesture.

"Erm, but what about our repairs General?" Slippy asked, speaking for the first time during the briefing with a little uncertainty, "The _Great Fox _really needs some patching-up before we go out again."

"I have every available military mechanic on the job working around the clock," the hound answered simply, "The major and vital repairs should be done in time for the mission. Anything extra will have to wait until after your return."

"And the new fighters?" Falco added, already eagerly picturing himself behind the joystick of Corneria's next generation of high-performance warbirds.

"They'll be ready too; they're based off the Arwing's control set up, so you should be able to pilot them on a basic level right away without any special instruction. The rest is on the disk," he said, nodding his head to it on the desk and prompting Peppy to finally take the cue and retrieve it. Then, anticipating the next query before it was spoken, he continued, "While we work on your carrier, I've taken the liberty of setting aside a private squad room for your personal use at the barracks next door; I've already spoken to the staff master over there, so all you should have to do is check in. And I believe…" he said, smiling and mentally going over his presentation for anything he may've left out, "That about wraps it up. On behalf of the rest of the Cornerian government, I'd like to thank you for taking the contract."

"Oh c'mon sir," Fox replied, grinning and offering his hand again, "You don't have to say that official kinda stuff for us; we've heard it all before, right?"

"Hah, you've got a point Fox," Pepper laughed, pumping the vulpine's arm a few times before mimicking the motion with the rest of the team. When he finished he said his farewells and stood up with the team to leave, still flashing a grin, "If I can shed my rank for a moment here, it was good to see all you again; in today's bureaucracy, good friends are few and far betwee-"

Unknown to the team, from the moment they stepped foot inside the Headquarters building, their eardrums had been acclimating themselves to the humming of a massive power generator that seeped through the walls. Similar to the white noise onboard a ship, the barely audible sound had simply faded into the background soon after their arrival, and nobody on the team noticed it. At least, nobody was aware of it until the droning suddenly stopped.

Pepper noticed it at the same time they did, and cut himself off as the room fell into true silence, followed immediately by the fading of the overhead lights and the plunging of the windowless office into complete darkness.

"Um…w-what's going on?" Slippy asked, nervousness already starting to make its presence known in his voice. The backup lights flickered on a few moments later, but their dim illumination did little to allay the toad's worries.

The General stared at him with his species' lazy ears pulled back and his shoulders up a little in uncertainty, showing that he had as much of an idea of what was occurring as the team did. A beeping broke the hush of the room, and coupled with a tiny, flashing light, caught Pepper's attention. He bent over his desk in the dimness to investigate, and found that it was a small, handheld com unit; one commonly carried by most army officers for military and personal use.

"General Pepper here," he stated normally after picking it up and thumbing the answer pad on the side, any insecurity caused by the apparent power outage in his voice well masked.

"…calling him now! General!" came a frantic voice on the other side of the connection, the yelling startling him a bit, "Stay in your office, lock it and don't let anyone in."

"What?" he asked, his voice becoming sterner, "Who is this?"

"Private First Class Gordon sir," the voice responded, a little calmer this time but the anxiety still oozed through the com, "I-I'm a guard downstairs. Someone's attacking the lobb-" A blaster shot's unique audio trail could be heard whizzing close by the receiver on the speaker's end, followed by a brief interruption of the transmission as the guard lost his grip on the com unit.

He recovered and his voice broke through an instant later though, "One of them got through to the elevators. I repeat, lock the door and stay-" The sound abruptly cut out; seconds of silence highlighting that it was for good. During the transmission, the sounds of blaster and gunfire pinging off the walls and unidentified voices screaming in confusion and pain could be heard in the background.

Pepper paused for a beat as the com cut out, his mind struggling for a moment to assimilate what he heard and waiting to see if the guard would call again. When the line remained quiet, the General replaced the hand-com on the desktop and shuffled quickly over to the door; opening a panel on the side of it to reveal a compartment containing a mechanical lever. He placed a faded brown paw on the metal implement and was about to pull it, when a voice from inside the room stopped him.

"Wait! Pepper," Fox said quickly, jumping from his seat in sudden remembrance of who was still waiting outside, "We have to get Krystal first."

"Who?" the confused General asked, turning from the door to the vulpine behind him but keeping his paw on the manual lock, "Who are you talking about?"

"The girl I…" the orange furred vulpine began to explicate, only to halt and recall that he had left the vixen and all things pertaining to her out of his debriefing of the Saurian mission; he had figured that it would only complicate things. "She's right outside in the hallway; please, we hav-"

"She's just outside here?" Pepper asked, pointing to the door and justifiably cutting the fox off as he realized someone's life could be at stake, not concerning himself with her background. If the guard's report was accurate, then the emergency powered elevators could be in use by one of the assailants, and that was a chance the General wasn't willing to take. Fox nodded in response to the question and the hound acted without hesitation, prying the door open manually before the merc could step forward to help and peering out into the corridor, wary of the guard's warnings.

He glanced at the empty bench, noting it as so and walking his vision down the hallway with parallel results: empty. '_Even Lisa's not at the desk,' _he thought, seeing that the secretary was also missing from her place down the hall near the lift bank. Then, just as he gave up and retreated back into his office, he caught a glimpse of a black-clad figure step out from the lifts, a gun held out in front of him pointed at the receptionist's desk. Even in the dimness and distance of the passage, Pepper could see the figure turn towards him and raise the pistol in his direction, prompting a reflexive duck back into his room. He followed the action quickly by sliding the door shut and throwing the manual lock with a heavy thunk.

"Where is she?" Fox asked slightly worriedly, seeing the General pull his head from the hallway without a second person. The hound's silence didn't assuage his feelings any and he asked again, more frantically, "Pepper, where is she!"

"Nobody was out there," he replied, seeing the force of his announcement on the vulpine's face, and moved by the look of despair, "I'm sorry Fox, but I have to keep this door locked; someone armed was coming this way."

"No! We _have _to find her!" the vulpine practically shouted, making an impassioned dash for the door Pepper was standing next to. As he passed Peppy and Falco though, they quickly rose up and held him back, struggling to contain the fox's fury at the shoulders.

"Be reasonable Fox!" Peppy roared gruffly into his ear, "None of us are armed; you'll be killed if you go out there!"

Fox's response was an animalistic growl, a snarl in defiance of the hare's plea for common sense as he renewed his efforts and continued to try to liberate himself from his teammates' steadfast grasp. The metallic object strapped to his shin, underneath the jade clothing, suddenly weighed heavily on his mind.

"I'm…sorry," was all Pepper could say; his genuine apology barely heard above the ardent merc's desperate protests.

* * *

Krystal needed to stretch again. 

Slowly standing up from the bench she had been sitting on for the last several hours, she pushed her arms out and up in a long yawn, and again took to pacing the corridor in an effort to remain attentive. As before, her thoughts turned for a moment towards the receptionist down the hallway and possibly conversing with the similarly-aged feline, but the prospect was again dismissed out of lack of confidence. Instead, she settled for merely extending her pacing route from the immediate area around the General's office to include the full length of the passage.

As the vixen approached her desk on the way to the other end of the hall, she could see out of her peripheral that the secretary was reading a magazine of some sort, aimlessly flipping through the worn pages and giving the impression that she was just as hungering for stimulation as Krystal was. She looked up as the blue-furred female passed, but the latter was careful to keep her focus straight ahead, so as not draw possible interaction between herself and the cat. Unfortunately for Krystal though, her desire to be left alone went unnoticed by the receptionist as she called out when the vixen was directly between the desk and the lift bank.

"Bored, huh?"

Krystal winced and halted mid-step, taking a silent breath as she turned to face the feline. She had never really conversed with any Lylatian outside Fox and his team, and the vixen was unsure of how to behave while engaging in a dialogue with a stranger; in all honesty, she was hoping to avoid such a situation until she had time to ask the vulpine about it in detail, "Erm...yes, a little bit."

"Yeah, me too," the feline replied with a smile in a tired voice, placing her chin onto her braced palm for effect, "It feels like I've been here for_ever_; this secretary thing can be so _boring _sometimes."

"I'm uh," Krystal began, her mind slaving over what to say to keep the unfamiliar idea of conversation rolling, "I'm…sorry to hear that."

"Ah don't be," she responded casually, picking her head up again and dismissing the idea with a wave of her paw, "I mean, _yeah_; it can get pretty tedious, but I really love this job. I get to travel with the General _every_where he goes; have you ever been to the artificial beaches on Aquas?" The vixen's head shaking 'no' prompted her to continue, her tone changing to slight sympathy, "Oh, you don't know what you're missing. They're simply _gorgeous_."

Krystal nodded in a way that she hoped showed her interest in the chat, but her failure to come up with anything to say brought about a space of quietness between them. Suddenly, as if detecting it and hoping to avoid the awkward silence, the receptionist stuck out her hand, "I'm Lisa, by the way."

She stared at the outstretched hand for a beat, unsure of what the feline was doing, before grasping the meaning of the gesture as a greeting and taking it in her own, "Krystal."

"Sorry 'bout how long the meeting's taking," Lisa went on, tilting her brown and white-splotched furred head towards Pepper's office door, "The General's conferences're usually much shorter."

"It's not a problem," Krystal responded with a nervous half-smile, more on her toes mentally than a casual dialogue would normally call for. She sincerely wanted to appear as though she was a native of the planet and system to the feline, and as far as she could tell, she was doing a decent enough job. However, before she could come up with anything else to say, her stomach abruptly did the talking for her, rumbling just loud enough for Lisa to hear.

"Heh," she laughed, noticing Krystal's sheepish smile and semi-flattened ears, "Hungry?"

A combination of her body's signals and Lisa's comment led the vixen to realize that she hadn't eaten anything since her departure from Sauria that morning. Other things that occurred during the day understandably distracted her from what would otherwise be an instinctual impulse, but now that her attention was focused on her lack of nourishment, she suddenly felt famished, "I guess so."

"Here; c'mon back and have a seat," the feline said, gesturing to an empty seat behind her in the desk enclosure, "I know I got some stuff to eat around here _some_where."

The vixen watched for a moment as the secretary ducked out of view beneath the desktop before taking her offer and locating the gap between the two-tier circular counter and the glass wall, and edging through it. Assuming the designated seat, she glanced around the cubicle at the various office supplies and implements that populated the desk, her natural curiosity beginning to take over as she pondered what their use could possibly be. She considered asking Lisa about them, such was her level of inquisitiveness, or even perhaps reaching out and touching one of the devices, but before she could do either, the feline pulled herself out of a cabinet she was reaching in and tossed Krystal a round fruit.

"…Thanks," she said after juggling the apple for a moment, unaware of the pitch until the last second. Lisa saw her trouble with it and apologized before biting into her own fruit, followed closely by the vixen doing the same with a bit more hesitation. The flood of juices and flavors that attacked her mouth startled her a bit as she chewed, making her first experience with Lylatian food a surprisingly pleasant one.

"So," the secretary began, the word drawn out as she formulated a question in her head that she had been planning on asking since she first saw the vixen, "If you don't mind me asking of course; …why'd you get light blue?"

Krystal stopped chewing and looked at her with her head cocked in confusion, "Excuse me?"

"Your fur," she replied, nodding toward her, "When you got it dyed, why'd you choose that color? It's an interesting choice. I don't think I've ever seen it done quite like that before."

She glanced down at the sky blue hair covering her bare forearm, and back at the questioner; completely lacking in any knowledge of the cosmetic procedure the feline was asking about, "I'm not sure I know what you mean; I was born like this."

Lisa opened her mouth to clarify what she meant, but stopped and closed it as her mind suddenly dawned on something. Instead, she merely lifted her head a bit and winked, adding skeptically, "Oh, of course you were. My mistake."

Krystal tilted her head again in perplexity in the opposite direction, the feline's words and actions not alleviating her puzzled mindset in the least, "I'm afraid I still don't know what you…mean…"

The vixen's trailing off came about not due to anything happening in the current conversation, but rather, what was occurring in the environment outside of it. Namely, the fading of the consistent background noise of industrial corridor lights and what she assumed to be the machinery running the moving platforms the team and her had taken on the way up. Krystal's ears perked at the lack of sound and she looked up at the lights from which the faint buzzing used to come, and as if on cue, they cut out milliseconds after her attention shifted to them.

Lisa snapped her focus to mirror the vixen's and sounded off with a quiet but higher-than-usual pitched bleat of surprise. Backup generators came to life only moments later, marked by the low-power lights humming on and the elevator mechanics whirring back into operation, but that did little to allay the female's suspicions and worries.

"That's weird…" the feline said quietly with a hint of suspicious inflection.

"What's…happening?" Krystal asked, turning towards her and suddenly getting a strange sinking feeling in her gut.

"I'm not exactly sure," she replied hesitantly, tapping a key on her computer touch-board a few times and shrugging after getting no results from the black screen, "…I guess the power went out." She leaned back in her chair and sighed, observing the peculiar glow created by the backup lights and natural illumination blending in the hallway before spinning her chair to face the vixen, "You don't happen to have a com on you; do ya?"

Krystal thought for a moment, racking her mind for what she meant before coming upon the answer, _'She must mean those devices Fox was telling me about.' _She subconsciously glanced at her forearm, where she remembered the vulpine and his team usually wore the communication-capable armbands, "No, sorry; I don't."

"Ah, that's alright," the feline replied, "I'll just head on downstairs for a second and see what's up; they got the elevators tied to the backup generators for a reason I guess."

Lisa stood up and Krystal followed suit to let her pass by, but they both stopped when they heard the coasting grind of a pair of elevator doors parting to reveal an occupant within. In the dimness of the lift car, Krystal could barely make out the lone figure, dressed as it was entirely in dark colored clothes, the exact hue impossible to determine in the shadow it was under. Ignoring its attire entirely though, she could sense something distinctly amiss about the being; something dangerous.

He stepped into the faint light of the corridor, where his gender could be made out, and smoothly raised his arm towards the two females, looking for a moment from their point of view like he was pointing at them. Krystal looked closer at his hand as he performed the motion though, and noticed that he wasn't picking them out at all; rather, he was holding an object of some sort, the shape of which made it appear as though he was jabbing at them with a long, cylindrical finger. The article, along with any other possible identifying features about the figure, was hidden by the dimness, but as he took another step forward, a backup light glinted off the metallic surface of the device. Time came to a halt.

'_That's…!'_ She recognized it immediately as being like the weapons the team had to relinquish at the security checkpoint in the lobby; the kind that shot the strange, mind-numbing bolts of light. However, she quickly concluded that this particular person was intent on more than just stunning.

Her instincts didn't wait for this decision and instantly kicked in when she saw what the object was, shocking her muscles with abrupt movement and sending her to the ground with Lisa in hand. Before they could make it though, two extremely suppressed ratchet sounds broke the silence, followed by the sickening thuds of the projectiles striking flesh. She felt a sprinkling of scarlet fluid on her exposed furred skin as she hit the floor, and although she knew that she herself hadn't been hit, she felt it would be best to lay still and act as though she was, drawing from a basic survival tactic she had learned so long ago. However, the figure had other plans.

She could hear him step forward, his boots signaling his approach, and see him through intentionally slit eyes leaning over the desktop, eyeing the two of them still on the ground. Spying the bloodied shoulder and torso of the feline, he turned to move on to his ultimate objective, the General's office, when he stopped and rotated back, noticing something odd about the other 'victim'. He peered closer over the counter and she knew, with a sudden increase in heart-rate, that he saw her watching him.

Without a word, he raised the silenced pistol again, pointing it straight at her heart, and tightened his grip around the trigger. Her mind raced, thinking of something, _any_thing that would get her out of the situation she found herself in. _'This…this can't be happening…what-…uhhh…'_

Krystal felt the collision of the metal slug through her vest, striking just below the collar bone and sending a jolt of pain through her entire body. The sharp recoil of the suppressed weapon echoed in her ears as sweet and relieving numbness swept the area of impact a few seconds later, time enough for the assailant to be satisfied with his performance and move onward to his main purpose for ascending the lifts. She breathed out as quiet as she could as he left, drawing no attention from the figure as such an action was expected when one was shot, and he continued on his way to the office at the end of the hall.

Krystal could feel the numbness branch out from the impact; spreading to every nerve ending and rendering her entire prone body without sensation. But worse then her body's physical breakdown was her mental state; her mind was storming with thought after unfinished thought, raging inside her in a typhoon of frantic contemplation. Was what going to happen to her? What was going to happen to _Fox_? She simply couldn't come to terms with the perceived fact that her life expectancy had been suddenly lowered to mere seconds. A shiver ran down her spine, and the air rushed out of her lungs, seemingly never to return.

And then, without effort, it rushed back in. _'…Wh……what…?'_

The tingling deadness faded from her nerves as sensation flooded back through her body; a wonderful but confusing feeling to the vixen who had all but given up on her fate. Her heart beat deep and stable; her vital signals showed no signs of having been damaged at all. At the same time, she also found that her mind had cleared itself and regaining her sharp instinctual awareness, telling her to stay down and make sure the dangerous one was well away before moving and making any noises he might hear. When she was satisfied about his lack of proximity, she finally opened her cerulean eyes and sat up, blinking a few times to regain visual focus and assessing her surroundings.

Her hand instinctively reached for the bloody wound she was sure that lay beneath her shoulder, just above her heart. Instead of wet, oily red liquid though, she felt nothing out of place at all; not even a hint of blood on either of her upper body garments. Even stranger to the vixen, she couldn't find a puncture in the black undershirt; she could feel the bruising underneath without touching it, but her shirt was entirely intact. It was as she was noticing this that Krystal felt a strange and definite weight _inside _her vest; a weight that, upon further investigation, she discovered to be a solid splotch of warm metal intertwined within the fabric, somehow blocked from continuing through the rest of the outfit. She peeled the steel off and stared at it for a moment, turning it over in her paw in mute wonder, before a weak groan snatched her attention from the flattened projectile to the feline on the ground next to her.

Lisa was still agonizingly conscious, griping her upper left arm with her right and almost biting her lip in two to keep from screaming from the pain. Another, larger blot of red caught Krystal's attention though, and she focused her vision a bit further south on her body, her eyes widening as she saw the blood stain midway down her torso, slightly off to one side. Before the azure vixen could do anything to help her though, she heard the faint whispers.

"K-krystal," Lisa struggled to speak through gritted teeth, her brain still astute as she noticed that at least one of them was relatively unscathed, "Do you have a w-weapon?"

The feeling of the staff on her back became more prominent when she was asked the question, prompting her to begin to reply affirmatively, but she stopped before getting the full 'yes' out. Despite the emergency situation they were in, she was still unsure if showing her personal defense tool was a good idea; she didn't know how someone with know knowledge of the implement would react. Before she could say anything else though, Lisa apparently picked up on her hesitation, and thrust something into her hand.

When Krystal looked down, she saw that the handle of a small black semi-automatic had been placed in her palm by the bloodied paw of the feline. "You have to stop that guy," she said, looking straight into her clouded cobalt eyes. Then, with a weak and strained grin, she added, referring to her wounds, "D-don't worry 'bout me; I…I don't think they're as bad as they look."

The vixen nodded and looked down at the unfamiliar weapon she had been given to use, reflecting briefly on the importance of what she had said. _'…She's right; if this 'Pepper' is as important as Fox said he was…' _She stopped in her mental tracks as the name crossed her thoughts, bringing back a series of realizations. _'Fox and his friends gave their weapons to that guard at the entrance; they're unarmed right now.'_

Maybe it was her natural tendency to take the chivalrous road in dire situations, as highlighted by her involvement on Sauria; maybe it was her desire to not lose the closest thing she'd had to a friend in literally a decade, despite the fact the she knew him for only the briefest of times so far; maybe it was her personal need to repay the debt she felt she incurred when she was rescued from her crystal imprisonment on Dinosaur Planet. Or, perhaps, it was something a bit deeper than any of that. Whatever the case, Krystal suddenly felt a drive to try to do what many, given her circumstances, would call suicide.

"Fox…" she whispered, rising to a crouch and taking a peak around the gap between the desk and the windowed wall, peering around the cubicle to witness the figure running away from her down the hallway. Taking a final glance back at Lisa, she saw the feline had apparently fallen into unconsciousness; her breathing still came in a raspy series of in and exhales, but she was lying still otherwise. Krystal stared down at the pistol in her hands, squeezing the grip of it and simply holding it for a moment before slipping it into and interior pocket on her vest. The weapon was still much too alien to her, and she was nervous enough about using the technology to the point of opting for her staff.

Slipping off her sandals for added stealth, Krystal waited until he reached the office door and was busy with another device in his hand, this one emitting a small, constant blue flame, before taking off after him, careful to remain as hidden as possible in the dim light of the hall. Her bare feet made barely a sound as they padded down the corridor; any noise they did make was covered up by the noise of the figure's device eating away at the metal door of the General's room.

She couldn't stop her breathing from becoming heavier and her heart from beating faster as the first shot of adrenaline entered her system, triggered by her closing distance from the gunman. In motion with her carefully performed dashing down the hallway, she reached back and yanked her staff free from where it was being held against her back, underneath her vest and shirt. It slid to full length at a flick of her wrist, a noise that sounded just as the figure cut the power to his flaming tool and turned towards her, noticing something out of his peripheral.

Seeing her opportunity only a few yards from the man, Krystal leapt into the air, revolving her staff in a gradual vertical circle along the way and scraping the ceiling with the point, before slamming back down to the floor, bringing the head of the polearm to crush the wrist that had been raised against her, knocking the gun out of his grip and clattering to the ground. Reversing her momentum she twisted the staff in her hands and struck its reverse end into his chin, cracking his head back. He stumbled back a step as she took advantage of the position this left her in, taking a half-step in reverse and snapping off a swift full body spin to build force before sending the curved top of the staff into the assailant's temple with both hands, bringing him down in a heap.

The vixen stood panting quietly for a second, staring at the dispatched foe motionless on the ground, and recovering from her exertion. On cue, her weapon slid shorter and she replaced it on her back, underneath the vest and shirt, before she bent down and picked up the assailant's pistol from the floor, knowing to never leave an opportunity for an uncertain opponent. She examined the gun for a moment as she straightened back up, shivering slightly at the thought that the strange firearm had come very close to killing her very recently, and knowing that there was little to nothing she could've done to prevent it. The whole concept of such a powerful ranged weapon was still extremely frightening to Krystal, and it was only the uniqueness of the situation that allowed her to permit herself to pick one of the Lylatian creations up.

Facing the fallen gunman with his property still in hand, she backed up a few steps until she was even with the General's office door; her drive had pushed the assailant back along the passage a few meters, and she was unwilling to turn her back on his still body as she realigned herself. Her heart slowed and the adrenaline that had been pumping through her veins began to subside, leaving her more aware of the reason she had strived to stop the attacker in the first place. She eyed Pepper's door again, wanting to move towards it and link up with Fox and his team, but at the same time, she kept an element of her awareness on the subdued intruder; while she couldn't quite put her finger on it, something didn't seem right about him.

A soft, feeble moan of anguish echoed through the hallway, pricking the vixen's ears and catching her full concentration. Gradually at first, but committing fully after the whimper sounded again, she turned around to stare down the hallway towards the desk where the nearly silent cries for help emanated, quickly identifying them as belonging to the feline she had abandoned moments earlier. However, before Krystal could do anything to help either Fox or Lisa, another, even subtler sound stopped her dead in her mental tracks. _'…That was a footfall'_, she thought, still facing away from the office's end of the hall and back towards the elevators and desk, _'…No.'_

The pistol that was held loosely in her grip at her side was suddenly snatched away, and she felt a heavy blow plow into her back, forcing her down on her knees in shock. She cringed and held her breath, expecting a lethal projectile to be launched by the black-clad stranger she thought she had knocked out at any moment. However, as the seconds ticked on and no shot was fired, she gradually opened her eyes, amazed to see the same surroundings she had seen when she closed them. Krystal could feel the assailant standing behind her, the barrel of the pistol inches from her cerulean hair, but for some reason, he hadn't fired.

"Stand up," a surprisingly civil sounding, though heavily accented voice commanded, "Turn around."

Krystal hesitated a moment, unsure and untrusting of the assassin, but, seeing no other alternatives for escape, she obeyed. She rose to her feet and rotated to gaze at the man, his face shrouded in black like his body, but his eyes still visible through two small holes. They were trained directly on her, cold and unwavering enough to further her unease and fear; they scanned her person almost as if he was studying her. Finally, his eyes returned to where his gun was aimed, at her face, and his barely understandable accented speech permeated the hallway again.

"You…you are different," he stated, as if he noticed something strangely out-of-place about the vixen. Then, with a sense of indifference and apology, he continued, "…But, I'm afraid that it makes no difference; His orders were very clear."

Krystal was assaulted with a sudden rush of emotion and confusion as her eyes widened in shock, triggered by his recognition of her being foreign. _'How does he know…' _she thought as the pistol barrel readjusted itself to point at her forehead, forcing any thoughts other than those for survival out of her mind. Before she could even consider reacting though, a sharp, metallic din penetrated the corridor, freezing her in place as she expected everything to go black in an instant.

However, it wasn't the gun's discharge that reverberated down the hallway; it was a large panel of door slag, kicked from the thin strip of untorched metal that the assailant had failed to cut through before being interrupted by the vixen's initial strike. Time slowed as Krystal observed the ensuing events, a strange force freezing her bare feet in place as she observed, refusing to allow her to move to do anything to aid.

An orange blur erupted from the hole left in the office door, ducking and jumping at the same time to clear the jagged opening. Upon landing outside in the hall, a meter from the startled and distracted assassin, he sprung into a jump reverse-kick, driving the intruder back against the glass. The black-clad figure's finger reflexively tightened on the trigger of his pistol, still aimed down the corridor, and it fired, puncturing the windows further on and shattering a full pane. The sudden gust and whistle of high-altitude wind did little to stop the vulpine's onslaught though.

Fox charged and got a left hook in before blocking an attempt to push him away, intercepting the assailant's foot with his knee and responding with a right straight-arm to the chest. As his arm extended, Krystal noticed an object in the merc's grasp, one that she didn't remember seeing on his belt earlier on. It was a sleek, night-black combat knife, held in a reverse grip to keep the blade pointing downward and leaving him armed yet unhindered for hand-to-hand combat, the kind he was currently engaged in.

The assassin grunted with the blow and brought his arms back in front, making an effort to pistol whip the vulpine while doing so and gain some distance in order to utilize the gun's more conventional use. But Fox had the momentum, and stopped the horizontal strike cold with by stabbing it mid-swing with the dagger, the knife gliding effortlessly through the flesh between the two forearm bones near the wrist and embedding itself firmly, eliciting a cry of shocking pain from the unknown man as the gun fell from his grip.

Unfocused by the blinding sting of the stiletto still lodged in his arm, the unidentified foe fell victim to a blur of precise footwork, the rusty-hued fox slipping his boot behind the assailant's heel and drawing it up, knocking him off-balance. Even as he began to fall, Fox utilized the sideways stance his foot maneuvers left him in and stepped into a full-momentum right elbow to face, pinning it between orange fur and stable glass. He held it there for a moment, as if judging the vitality of the now motionless aggressor, before disengaging and letting the unconscious body crumple to the floor.

He stared at the black-covered form, regaining his breath for a second or two, before bending down on one knee and checking the man's vital signs, ensuring that he was down for good. Satisfied, he then moved on to his dagger, gripping the handle of the blade and wrenching it loose with the sickening sound of the flesh being cut further by it's exit. Wiping the bloodied blade off on his vest, he then pulled up his right pant leg and replaced the night-hued dagger in its sheath behind his shin, resetting the cloth and assuming his full height again.

Breathing deep but doing his best to hide it, he swallowed as he turned away from the still body, eyeing the pistol and making sure it was a good distance from the assailant's outstretched hand, and focused on the vixen standing a couple meters away from him. He was about to speak, but her cold, empty stare stopped him before he could form the words; it wasn't so much a gape at him, but rather a gaze _through _him, as though she was in deep thought about something. Such a look surprised the fox, as it ran counter to the reaction of most of those he knew who experienced such a close brush with death.

"Krystal?" he asked, any thoughts about her strange behavior melting away upon the sight of her mentally distant visage, relief at her safety evident on his voice as he took a step towards her, "You alright?"

"Yeah," she answered immediately, taking a full breath in and out, "I think so…" Shaking her head and clearing her mind, her clouded eyes returned to a slightly fatigued version of their usual cerulean radiance. Then, instead of her previous gaze off into space, she turned her focus directly onto the fox, emotion spilling into her voice, "Fox…you saved-"

A faint and barely audible moan of agony interrupted her, so quiet that Fox didn't even catch it the first time, only hearing it after mirroring Krystal's ear perking and picking up on the distant sound. She spun around as the vulpine looked past her, both of them seeing the startling sight at the same time and drawing a sharp inhale as they did.

Lisa was propping herself against a foundation beam on the window side of the hallway down by the elevators, supporting her heavily injured body with whatever strength she could manage to summon. She was clutching a spot on her torso, the region of the shirt surrounding it soaked in the vile and telltale shade of crimson, matched only by the stream of blood flowing freely from her shoulder, unchecked as she seemed now to not even notice the second wound. The drops of blood falling from her fingertips to the floor from the stream were visible even in the dim backup light of the corridor.

* * *

"Man; first day back and already I'm bein' left outta the fights," Falco commented, stepping through the door's wreckage and into the hallway, "Next time Fox, _you _play babysitter, alright?" 

The lack of a verbal response and the sound of retreating footsteps prompted the avian to turn away from the body he was looking at and stare down the hallway, seeing the pair of foxes running towards what looked like the receptionist from before; though hard to tell in the dim light from his position, she appeared to be pretty badly hurt. Pepper came up beside him, along with the rest of the Star Fox team from the office, and gazed down at the unmoving body, visibly shaken to a degree but his experience as a General preventing anything even closely resembling worry or panic.

"Hey Pepper," Falco said, nudging him and pointing down the hallway where Fox and Krystal were sitting the feline down on the ground, "I think something's wrong with your secretary; she ain't lookin' so hot."

The General followed the avian's gesture; his age-wearied eyes widening as they fell on Lisa, followed closely by the distant sound of a wincingly painful fit of coughs. The harsh and painful retches were all the elder hound needed to take off running towards her, thumbing the portable com he was called on before and shouting for medical assistance from someone downstairs. Falco watched him go, genuinely surprised by Pepper's burst of athleticism, before turning back to the assailant's body along with Peppy and Slippy.

It wasn't that they didn't care about the severely injured feline; far from it in fact. But, they all knew that there was little they would be able to do to help; without medical supplies, they would be of no use to the other three already there. Their efforts would simply be better spent elsewhere, such as searching the body of the assassin and attempting to uncover his identity.

Falco knelt down on one knee near the body, running a hand over the black jacket until he located the off-center zipper, and tugged it open. At the same time, Slippy curiously reached for the assailant's similarly colored face hood, and pulled it off, revealing the young but decidedly hardened face of a male hare, roughly in his early twenties. The avian took note of the revelation of the species, noticing with a slight smile that he must've had to fold his ears uncomfortably low to keep it unknown, but was ultimately more interested in the contents underneath the intruder's jacket, as anything of potential use would most likely be found there.

Immediately beneath the outer most layer of clothes was a dull, personal armor vest; a few half-ruptures and tears indicating that the man had been hit and left unscathed at least a few times. _'Probably back in the lobby, _Falco thought, not remembering hearing any gunplay in the hallway, _'No surprises yet.' _Upon peeling back the outer coat further, the avian discovered an undershirt beneath the vest; the left short sleeve of which failed to hide a shield shaped tattoo bearing the symbol of a tall mountain, with a bright beam shining down from its peak.

"Katinian Special Forces," Falco murmured, reading the text under the emblem, inscribed roughly and still visible in the skin amongst the since re-grown fur. He searched through the rest of the pockets without finding anything else of major significance, other than a few clips of ammunition. The discovery of said items was enough to warrant a want to examine the unconscious assailant's firearm, which was delivered to him after a request to Slippy to retrieve it. Upon receiving the silenced pistol from the toad, Falco turned it over in his hands, eyeing every nook and cranny of the weapon until he found what he was looking for.

"Made and registered on Katina; Planetary Army Weapon," he said aloud, reading from a tiny line of engraved words on the bottom of the gun's grip. He turned to Peppy and offered him the gun, pointing out the suspiciously obvious words as he did so and speaking with more than a hint of sarcasm, "Gee, _that's_ convenient."

"Indeed," Peppy replied casually, sharing Falco's skepticism and nodding with agreement, "Same with the army tattoo."

"There's no way this guy's Katinian," Slippy stated abruptly, catching on to what they were saying and expressing what was so apparent to his companions.

Falco stopped and looked at him out of the corner of his eye, exhaling in slight annoyance before continuing, "Right; so...anyone else got a feeling that somethin's not right here?"

* * *

"I need a medical team up here now!" 

Pepper's words surprised the foxes, causing them to look up at the unexpected presence of the General, moments after their own arrival at Lisa's injured form. Fox made an effort to say something from his position, kneeling next to the feline and having already assessed her wounds, but despite his mouth opening, nothing came out. He simply couldn't find the words to express the severity of her apparent medical condition.

"Roger General," another voice called back over the com in the hound's hand, "A med team's already in route; they should be there in a matter of seconds."

Her breathing came quick and shallow, but unlabored, giving the assembled group a shred of reassurance that at the very least, nothing immediately vital had been pierced by the would-be assassin's bullets. The bleeding, however, was still a problem, as her shirt's fabric refused to soak up any more of the free-flowing blood, causing it to stream past it and into a small pool forming on the floor, matting her fur with the life-fluid along the way. Pepper knelt down next to her, in an effort to comfort the feline, and placed his hand on her uninjured shoulder.

"Don't worry Lisa," he said as she lazily and weakly rolled her head to look at the General, "You're going to be okay."

She struggled to press her muzzle into a smirk, managing only the barest form of such an expression but encouraged by the hound smiling in return at her efforts. "Gen-General," she stuttered, finding it difficult to form and release the words, "You're…you're…you-"

She interrupted herself with another, painfully agonizing series of coughs, unable to restrain herself any further and flooding the hallway with the wince-inducing resonance. The fit lasted longer than the first time; every gag and heave pulling on Krystal's heartstrings as the feline's posture seemed to degrade at each dry retch. The idea that they had just been making friends with each other only a minute earlier was not lost on the vixen as she watched the secretary struggle to breathe.

"Hold on," the General strained, tightening his grip on her shoulder into a comforting squeeze as she doubled over from the pain, "The med team should be here in no ti-"

As if on cue, one of the elevators along the nearby bank pinged and parted its doors, a squad of medical personal bursting forth and quickly locating and surrounding Lisa, respectfully nudging the General and foxes aside as they assessed the feline's status. A lead medic rattled off a series of observations and conclusions, capping his revelations with a call for a stretcher, which was promptly delivered from the lift seconds later. Falco and the others joined the rest of the assembled group moments later, watching the feline get gingerly yet hastily strapped to the hand-stretcher and carried off.

"Hey," the avian called to the head unformed med officer as he arrived, gesturing behind him at the unconscious intruder, "Make sure y'all send up another team for the…the uh…ya know; the assassin guy."

"Will do, sir," he replied from the elevator, getting on the com immediately to relay his very message.

A uniformed army officer who had accompanied the medical team saluted to and addressed Pepper, moments after the lift doors closed, "General, the guard captain downstairs wants you to stay put until they can secure the lobby; a squad of guards are coming up as we speak for extra security." Then, turning to Fox, he continued, "Mr. McCloud; you and your team are to be detained for questioning. I apologize for the inconvenience, but-"

"Sergeant," the hound interrupted, holding his hand up, "I know the Star Fox team had no part in this; right now they're under my direct orders and are currently on an assignment of high planetary importance. They have legal immunity to the furthest extent that my command jurisdiction allows."

"But, sir," the officer replied, clearly a little confused as to the General's statement, "The security plan states that all present at the scene must be held for investigative purposes."

"I'll take full responsibility for whatever comes from this," Pepper said, starting to sound a little frustrated, "Now Sergeant, please go with them and make sure they don't suffer any delays on the way out of the building."

"Y-yes sir," he stuttered, surprised at the abrupt command and resulting security breach. Even so, he still managed to snap off a salute before turning back to the team, "We'll leave as soon as the security team arrives."

* * *

Krystal was in a shear and unmitigated state of silent shock. Not only had she witnessed the possibly fatal wounding of someone she had only very recently met by a weapon she still couldn't comprehend, but she had been attacked by the assassin and had survived solely due to the vest that she had received from the Fox only hours before. In addition, she had been only a split-second away from certain death when the vulpine had bolted almost literally from nowhere and saved her life. The entire experience left so many questions unanswered; so many things unknown and clouded in confusion. 

'_And he looks no worse for the wear…,' _she thought as the elevator car descended, its effects on the body completely pushed aside by her state of mind, _'None of them do.'_ She was peeking at the mercenary's visage out of the corner of her vision, noting his stone-faced calm and the completely confident air he exuded, _'…I wonder what he's thinking right now…'_

Fox knew something was wrong with the vixen; he could see it in her cerulean eyes through their reflection on the mirror-like elevator door frame. She was looking off at something else in the lift car, but his position gave him a perfect view of her troubled façade and the emotions flowing beneath the outer shell. It had been a trying encounter for him as well, but he knew that given their occupation, he and the rest of his team could handle whatever poignant side-effects came with such a situation; it was Krystal he was concerned about.

'_I hope she's holding out okay," _he thought, taking a final glance at her as the lift arrived at the bottom floor. He remembered seeing spattered blood on the lower part of her vest, along with what looked like a heavy tear in the same garment near her shoulder, and made a note to ask her about them later on. _'No telling what she's thinkin' right now…'_

Regardless of their mental condition, the entire occupancy of the elevator car let out a collective gasp, either verbal or thought, as they exited the lift and entered a completely changed lobby from the one they left earlier that day. The once brilliantly reflective marble walls were scorched with harsh black blaster marks and marred by projectile-induced chipping; fragments of the polished granite joined drained ammunition cartridges in littering the floor with debris. The main power was still out, and the sun was beginning to set through the massive windows outside, leaving the waning natural light as the only supplement to the dim backup lighting in the two-story lobby.

The security sergeant led them on a twisting trail through the battle-zone of an atrium, avoiding the scurrying medical teams and investigators as the group made their way to the exit. As they proceeded along their path, the team couldn't help but observe the living components of their environment; the stories of each and every inhabitant permanently and often tragically altered by what happened that evening. Being the most susceptible, Krystal fell to emotional vacuum caused by each individual situation, barely able to hold her facial expression at only slightly affected as each scene came into focus.

A uniformed guard/soldier and a counterpart assailant both lay on their stomachs several meters apart near the elevator hallway, their weapons still clutched tightly in their outstretched hands and pointed at each other. Patches of blood a short distance behind the soldier painted the image of the fatally injured guard staggering forward, refusing to go down with taking an attacker with him, and drenching the ground beneath him with every lurching step before finally succumbing to the life-draining wounds.

Their trail to the doors led them by another of the black-clothed assassins, this one sprawled out faced up on the floor as he fell, two small and precise holes in his chest trickling a thin stream of dark fluid. A medical team slid to a halt next to the body as the team passed, an army nurse performing a quick check of his vitals before rising back up and rushing off to another, potentially savable victim.

A wounded soldier was talking to an investigator a few meters away from the assassin's body, his arm in a heavily blood-stained sling. His gaze keep shifting from the detective to the massive lobby fountain nearby, where a less-fortunate guard lay motionless, half his body still submerged in the water as the med teams skipped over him, more concerned with saving the living first. The tears welling in the first security officer's eyes as he continued to converse with the investigator made it heartbreakingly obvious that the two were close.

As the group finally reached the exit, they were forced to navigate through one more instance of grizzly violence, made even more disturbing by the fact that one of the victims was one with whom they had shared casual conversation with when they first arrived in the Headquarters building. At the security checkpoint just inside the entrance, amid the wreckage of the shattered weapons detectors lay a pair of black-clad assailants on their stomachs, their automatic weapons on the floor next to them where they dropped upon losing the ability to grip them. Each sat in a stagnant pool of deep scarlet blood, seeping out from under them and overlooked as a pair emergency personnel tore through to door with a stretcher, carrying a severely wounded guard between the members of the Star Fox team.

Fox heard the noise of the stretcher-bearers coming through, and turned to watch them pass by, taking his field of vision and placing it towards the other side of the roped-off checkpoint in the process. Just as he did though, and right before the lead bearer interrupted his gaze, he saw something that would make even his battle-hardened, mercenary mind flinch. He could've sworn he saw the collie soldier from before, the one that had lead them to the elevators after taking their firearms, sitting down on the marble floor opposite of them and in a posture that suggested rest or recovery. After the stretcher and its attendants passed, he stepped forward, intending to greet the collie and inquire about what happened.

As he did so though; he froze.

Fox's emerald irises locked with the seated guard's, the latter's forever unblinking stare in return sending a shiver down the vulpine's spine. Upon a closer and unobstructed inspection, the collie's seated position looked more as if he had been forced down; hunched over slightly and his arms at his sides, his pistol still gripped in one paw. A virtual delta of crimson stream-stains was visible underneath a sheet someone had wisely placed over his torso; given his being the first guard the gunmen saw, and his proximity to their automatic weaponry, his wounds were probably violent enough that a passing medic decided to spare the rest of those who came across the corpse the sight.

The hesitation lasted only for a moment, and then it was gone; the collie was no different than the rest of those deceased scattered throughout the lobby. The stutter-step Fox took as he called their escorting sergeant over to unlock the weapon's rack was the only evidence that he had taken note of the dead guard's identity at all. He accepted the four pistols from the officer and turned back to distribute them to each of their owners, sneaking a final glance at the collie before taking up the tail end of the procession as they finally exited the Headquarters building.

A gust of warm, late evening air greeted them as they emerged, accompanied by the sound of screeching sirens and the sight of flashing lights as more emergency personal arrived. The accompanying sergeant pointed out the barracks building, connected to the same sparse courtyard as the structure they just left, and bid the team farewell, stressing that he needed to return to the scene of the attack. Thanking him, they proceeded along the designated path, sidestepping the occasional yellow-tape barrier or investigative team; regardless of their own personal thoughts and experiences within the HQ, they were all glad to simply leave the disturbing scene behind.

The Barracks lobby was comparatively eerily silent, the team's footfalls echoing off the plainer walls as they entered and sought out the staff officer located behind a hotel-style check-in desk. Almost to the point of being curt, the sergeant on duty was quick, official, and obviously pre-notified of their arrival, requiring only a flash of Fox's ID card before handing over a set of magnetic keys, and pointing them down an adjoining hallway.

Following the directional signs and markers along the sprawling corridors of the barracks, the team found their designated room fairly easily, passing the occasional soldier along the way and drawing a few looks from them. Upon arriving, Fox waved the small, cylindrical key in front of the wall-mounted scanner, the scrutinizing beam of light turning from red to green and followed by a pneumatic hiss as the door slid open.

Casually sniffing the air as the team filed into the rectangular room, the vulpine detected a good deal of sterilizing and sanitizing agents, indicating that the space had been cleaned very recently. _'Pepper wasn't kidding when he said he was in a hurry,' _he thought to himself as he analyzed the rest of the room visually, taking in all the details of the area where they would sleep that night. The squad room was large enough to fit a pair of bunk-beds, along with the unit sergeant's single cot, giving the sleeping quarters a convenient maximum capacity of five.

It was just as he and the rest of the team were dawning on the possible argument of who would receive the single bed that his stomach gave an audible snarl, snapping all of their collective thoughts onto a single and vital need that they had been deprived of for what seemed like an eternity.

Fox couldn't help the sheepish grin that spread across his muzzle, feeling worse by the moment as he saw that the rest of the team had yet to lose the melancholy expressions retained from their experience in the Headquarters Lobby. Even the normally smirking and wisecracking Falco was ensnared by the downhearted and gloomy attitude; it was the natural reaction of one who had to witness what they did. However, among the downcast eyes and forlorn looks, he managed to make out a spark of interest in the idea of eating a meal.

"So; anyone up for dinner?" he asked, trying to sound upbeat but failing to gain any sort of increase in attitude.

Falco shrugged; his casualness and lack of commentary unsettling the vulpine as much as his calm and normal facial expression was, "Sure."

With the slightly awkward feeling of having come to their temporary sleeping quarters for no real reason, the team took Fox up on his suggestion and filed back out of the room. They set a pace down the hall, following signs and the occasional pointer from a passing solider as they navigated the virtual maze of corridors. As they proceeded however, the two foxes slowed down a bit upon a few subtle gestures from the vulpine, allowing a gap to form between them and the other three. As soon as the space was wide enough for unobserved interaction, Fox turned to the vixen and slowed his walking speed even further, drawing an interested look from her as she followed suit.

"Krystal," he began, running a quick diagnostic over what he wanted to say before continuing, "I…didn't want to say anything back there, but, well…are you alright? You looked a little shook up back at the General's office."

The vixen's response went unspoken for a period of time after hearing the question; there were simply too many contributing factors to her agonizingly real experience in the Cornerian Army Headquarters to even attempt to explain her personal state in regards to feelings and emotions. The overlying sense of being alien in a largely unknown and often frightening world; the assassin striking Lisa down with a strange and unfamiliar weapon; being shot with the same device and surviving due to stranger technology with merely a bruise; the mental list was almost endless.

Her lack of a reply stretched on as the visual images that were retained from the nightmarish walk through the lobby flashed by inside her head; refusing to dislodge their vivid memories from her mind. The empty faces and blank stares coursed through her conscious and thwarted any attempt at an answer she could form with their disturbing nature.

Eventually, Krystal's silence got to Fox, and he turned to her in mid-step, placing his hand on her right shoulder in a gesture he hoped was comforting as he found a way to ignore his previously timid nature around the vixen for the moment, "I'm sorry Krystal; you don't-"

She winced and let out a gentle yelp as the pressure of Fox's hand met the fresh bruising below the shoulder bone, sending needles of stunning pain through her nervous system. The vulpine quickly withdrew his paw in surprise, and noticed for the first time up close the tear in her dark grey vest, the dimensions of it indicating that it could only be caused by one thing.

"Krystal?" he beseeched her as they stopped, alone in the hallway as she recovered from the jarring residual pain. His voice was saturated with worry and concern, but it wasn't in fear of her being seriously injured; he fully trusted the bullet-resistant vest he gave her to have done its job. His level of anxiety came instead for her mental and corporal well-being, "You…you were shot? Are you okay?"

The vixen continued to clutch her shoulder tightly as the throbbing slowly died down, teeth gritted and breathing heightened by the sudden shock of reawakened pain. It had been only a dull ache since the left the Headquarters building, and she had almost forgotten about it until Fox unintentionally reawakened the injury with a surprisingly light touch. "Yeah…I…I think so," she responded, cautiously releasing her grip on her shoulder, "But…it still hurts."

Fox already knew everything she said; he wouldn't have been so strangely calm if he didn't know that the vest worked and that her soreness stemmed from bruising caused by the bullet's impact. It was _her _lack of knowledge that he was attempting to solve. "That'll die down in awhile; it should only be bruising on your shoulder and collar bone there," he said, thinking while he was speaking about the heavy weight of what he was going to say next.

"But…listen," he continued, taking a slight step forward to get the pair moving again at the leisurely pace to the mess hall, "Everything you saw back there…everything that happened, is something that very, very rarely occurs. I've never seen an attack like that in my entire life living here; usually, this is a very safe city."

Krystal dipped her sight slightly as she considered what the vulpine was saying; his words were reassuring, but their purpose was still unclear. It seemed like a strange thing to say to her. "Fox…why are you telling me this?"

"…I just don't want you to get the wrong idea about my world," he explained with a serious tone, but with a smiling face, "I mean; you've been on Corneria less than a day, and you've already been shot at; under those conditions, it'd be easy to write the planet off as a violent place. And it really isn't." He went on, changing his inflection to a softer shade, "If you are going to stay with us, I just want you to know that. What you saw in that building was the worst I've seen in awhile, but it was a unique situation; one that's opposite of the norm around here. …If I can get the chance later, I'd like to show you what I mean."

A strange sense of understanding and comprehension spread over the frayed nerves of the vixen as they passed through a set of double doors, followed by a subdued form of an emotion she hadn't remembered feeling since she was a tiny child; anticipation. Whatever it was that Fox was alluding to by his last sentence sparked her interest for some reason she had yet to recognize, and it helped to pull her out of her previous mental isolation with her thoughts. Before she could respond though, she realized that they had entered what appeared to be the cafeteria they were attempting to find, and certain other senses distracted her.

Namely, smell. The tip of her muzzle twitched as her nose was assaulted by a virtual cocktail of alternatively enticing and repellent scents, wafting from behind a serving counter on one wall of the large room. Moving with her vulpine companion to the row of buffet style food trays, at the end of which was the rest of the team, the cerulean vixen noticed for the first time that she was starving; she couldn't remember eating since her departure from Sauria, and that was only from the small stock of provisions onboard her personal shuttle.

As such, the fairly mundane assortment of cooking product lined up before her was a feast fit for the highest official to the famished female. However, as she reached to retrieve the first portion of her meal from a bin of fruit, she came to a strange but halting realization; she hadn't the slightest idea of what any of the displayed victuals were. Just as apprehension was about to set in though, her reflexive turn in Fox's direction for help revealed the solution to her problem; the others' platters.

"Hey man," Falco asked, sliding his full tray over to the vulpine, "What took you guys so long? Take the scenic route or somethin'?"

"Hah," Fox laughed, grabbing another bit of food to adorn his plate with, "I dunno; maybe you just walk too fast. But what's takin' _you_ guys so long? I'd expect you to be chowin' down already."

Krystal observed the different meal sets on each of their trays as they conversed; each was decked out with diverse servings of food, and she was uncertain as to which she should emulate. Then, concluding that, being of identical species, Fox's taste pallet would probably be closer to her own than the avian's, she quickly identified and retrieved dishes of the same sort as those on his plate for her own. Now semi-confident with her choice of 'cuisine', she followed the pair of mercs down the row to the end, where they hooked up with Peppy and Slippy and set off finding a table in the mostly empty mess hall, populated by a few soldiers who were content to keep to themselves.

The dinner was a relatively tame ordeal, with most of the team's dialogue revolving around what had been revealed to them in Pepper's briefing, and the attack on his office. They all shared a feeling of surprise and concern at the unexpected concept of a war between Corneria and Katina; the last major interplanetary conflict had been the system-encompassing Lylat War, and that had taken place a mere four years ago, recent enough to leave many regions of the system still under the umbrella of reconstruction. Another prolonged clash of similar size would be devastating.

Among the influx of novel and occasionally startling tastes and flavors from her food tray, Krystal managed also to pick up a few things from listening to the conversation going on around her; such as a rough outline of the mission the team had been assigned. She hadn't realized it until now, but she had been essentially coasting on a mental level since leaving the HQ; she was simply following Fox and his crew, ignorant of whatever duty they had obtained. The vixen was basically tagging along.

However, with the addition of a few discrete questions she managed to slip to Fox while the conversation was turned elsewhere, she came to grasp the full meaning of the team's assignment and goal; her lack of technical knowledge did little to diminish the impact of the war's possibilities. She was no stranger to the concept of armed conflict; but such strife on a planetary scale was enough to boggle her relatively primitive mind.

"Now, remember Fox," Peppy said between forkfuls of salad, pointing the empty utensil after consuming its load to help make a point, "This meeting's going to be about diplomacy; as the neutral party, we won't have to talk much, but it's still going to require a certain level of…well, discipline."

"So…what're you saying Peppy?" the vulpine asked with a sly grin, chewing on a hunk of tough cafeteria beef, "That I'm undisciplined?" This was followed by a snort of a laugh from Falco; their sated appetites eliminating more than simple hunger as the melancholy air that had hung over the team began to lift.

"You know what I mean Fox," he smiled, maintaining his serious tone, "We've never really done a contract like this before, and I just want to make sure you understand what's at stake here."

"Relax Gramps," Falco replied for the merc captain, "I'm sure we can handle sitting still for an hour or two."

"I'm not so sure about that Falco…" Peppy trailed off, drawing a look from the avian and a mirthful grin from Fox and Slippy; the comment even managing to pull a slight smile to the vixen's muzzle.

Before Falco could respond though, a loud, gruff voice broke through the faint conversational atmosphere of the cafeteria, catching the attention of all those within. "Alright you grunts," the chef shouted, ringing a bell a few times for emphasis, "Ten o'clock; time ta hightail it outta here; we're closing." Amongst the mutterings of annoyance and disappointment from the soldiers as they got up to leave, the chef also made another announcement, directed at Fox and his team, "You too mercs; don't think you're gettin' any special treatment here."

"Of course not, sir," Fox replied, irritated that the staff officer had addressed him like that, but shrugging it off; he was used to the back-handed treatment those of his trade often received, "We were just leaving, actually."

He grunted in response before turning to retreat back into the kitchen, his message delivered and a good deal of cleaning work ahead of him. Fox sighed as he pushed back his chair and stood up, facing the rest of the team only to observe them doing the same, clearing their remaining food to a nearby garbage can as they did so. After filing their way through the empty, randomly scattered tables, they reached the exit of the cafeteria, moments before the bright, overhead lights were killed with an echoing resonation.

* * *

"Have I mentioned how much I hate waking up early?" 

"Yes Falco," Peppy replied tiredly as he stepped through the door into their dorm-room; drained from both the day's events and the avian's overall behavior, "A great many times, if I remember correctly."

"Alright," he continued, smiling slightly but still completely honest in his statement, "Just so long as I've made it clear."

The hare chuckled the statement off and made his weary way over to the large, single bed in the middle of the room, sitting on the edge of it with a relieved sigh of contentment. Peppy's claim evident to the rest of the team, Falco didn't even attempt to put up an argument for the bigger cot, settling instead for the bottom of the right double-bunk, with Slippy tailing close behind and leaving the two foxes with the left side.

'_Somehow, I knew it would end up like this,'_ Fox couldn't help but think, turning to the vixen beside him and gesturing to the remaining beds, hoping he wouldn't trip up on the invariably awkward speech regarding the sleeping arrangements with his female friend, "It uh, looks like we're bunk-mates for tonight; which one do you want?"

"Oh," she responded with a hint of surprise, looking towards the unfamiliar bed style with an analyzing eye, "…I…don't really know. …I'll just take whatever one you want me to."

"Al-right," he replied, running over every possible social custom he could remember and desperately trying to recall which the proper one to choose in his situation was. "Is the top okay then?"

"Yeah," Krystal answered with a firm nod, apparently just as relieved to solve the matter, "That's okay with me."

With the last obstacle cleared, the team made the various preparations for the pre-mission sleep, the younger trio of males taking special care to adjust their routine to suit the presence of the cerulean female. Krystal, being rather unsure in return, observed and attempted to mirror their actions, stripping off her grey vest/jacket and footwear, and depositing them at the base of the double-bunk she was sharing with Fox. The lack of further disrobing before climbing into the heavy sheets of the cots confused the vixen a little, but she merely mentally shrugged it off as another strange custom of the Lylatians. She never suspected that she was the cause of it.

Watching Slippy struggle his way up to the top bed on his side of the room, garnering an unexpected boost in the form of Falco yanking him up by the collar, Krystal followed suit and climbed into her own upper cot, using the bottom bunk as leverage for absence of a ladder. The slightly uncomfortable stiffness of the bed was plush as a pillow to the vixen; her own set-up for sleep that she had become used to in her shuttle was a wooden board compared to the military-issue mattress now supporting her weight.

"Alright guys," Fox announced from below her, sitting on the bottom bunk and holding his wrist comp in his paws, "I'm settin' the alarm for four-thirty; we have to make sure we're up and out-"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Falco interrupted, looking up from fiddling with a tiny, handheld gaming device he produced from his pocket, "_Four-thirty_? …You're joking, right?"

"Well, the trip to Titania from here is about two hours," Peppy answered from the single bed between the two previous speakers, "Add in the jaunt from here to the Spaceport, take-off times, and unforeseen delays…four-thirty seems about right if we're shooting for an eight o'clock meeting."

"Alright…" the avian replied, "…But if I don't wake up in time, you have my permission to carry me to the ship." He flashed a grin as he turned back to his game, muttering to himself as he did so, "…I didn't even know there _was _a four-thirty in the morning…"

Fox smiled and shook his head as he finished programming the alarm on his armband, placing it on the floor next to his vest and shoes on the ground. Swinging his feet back to the bed, he crawled into the covers of the cot, feeling the warm fabric embrace his exposed fur and slide over his worn pants and shirt. Cradling his head with interlaced hands on his pillow, he stared up at the bottom of the bunk above him, listening to the faint squeaks and creaks as its occupant readjusted herself, undoubtedly feeling the same awkwardness of sleeping with full clothes on as he did. As he lay there though, he couldn't help but think back to the first time he saw her, trapped in the crystal on Sauria, suspended in a soft and delicate, yet entirely unintentional, sleep. A smile spread across his face as Peppy grabbed the light switch near the hare's bed, plunging the room into near complete darkness, and the vulpine unwittingly allowed what he was thinking towards the vixen to come to his mouth.

"Good night," he began gently, his eyes widening in shock as soon as the words left his muzzle; he hadn't said something like that in ages. Thinking quickly, he attempted to recover, "Er, guys."

A quiet string of titters from across the room blew any hope he had that Falco hadn't caught what he said, followed by the avian's voice emanating from in front of his bright but tiny video screen, "Heh, 'night Foxie."

Peppy grunted a similar response, and the already dozing Slippy didn't reply at all, leaving only the female above him to have yet to answer. The seconds stretched to minutes, and still she didn't respond, leading the vulpine to conclude that she had fallen asleep as soon as she hit the mattress. _'Eh, I don't blame her,' _he thought to himself as he rolled onto his side and closed his eyes, _'Trying to adjust to such a new world…it must be exhausting.' _His breathing slowed and regulated itself into a constant inhale and exhale, and his eyelids began to weld themselves shut for the night. _'Well…good night, Krystal…'_

A meter or so above the male fox, the subject of his thoughts lay and stared at the ceiling, watching the panels grow sharper and clearer as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She had heard Fox's comment, but it never registered on her mind; the jet black of the room amplified the uneasiness and reservations that had clawed at her subconscious since they left the Headquarters building tenfold, shining a mental spotlight on them as they took center stage in her thought patterns, and shoved everything else aside.

Perhaps it was due to her inexperience to the horrible sights she had witnessed that day; Fox's life as a mercenary had conditioned his mind to ignore such troubling things, but Krystal's was comparatively vulnerable. Her eyes began to strain as she continued to stare into the metal ceiling above her, quickly losing the stamina to remain awake as a weariness she didn't realize she possessed made itself known. The physical exhaustion did little to slow the racing psyche though, and even when she eventually gave in and lets her eyelids fall close, it didn't slow her brain any.

Swirls of color danced behind her shut eyes, fading in and out in a series of strangely organized shifts, coalescing into blotches of tinted nothingness. The spots began to take on definite shape, linking together into larger and larger smudges until an image was formed; one that was immediately familiar, and had emblazoned itself into her memory. Rising far above every other scene she recalled from the events earlier that evening, this was the one setting that caused her the most worry and fright.

And then, the scene in her mind that had formed from nothing began to play out.

"You…" the image echoed, the glinting pistol directed straight at her, "…You are different…"

The vixen stared at the image up the barrel of his weapon, watching with pre-scripted horror as his finger tightened around the trigger, and his eyes flashed through the holes in the mask. Only this time, there was no savior; Fox was nowhere to be seen. His cue came and went, and the gunman continued with what he had intended to do. The pistol flashed without sound.

Krystal's eyes sprang open.

A gasp escaped her muzzle as she sat up in the top bunk, her heart thumping inside her chest and her panting breaths accelerated to match. Her cerulean fur was drenched from head to tail in sweat; she could feel a drop of the salty fluid form at the tip of her nose as she sat there, before falling onto the covers beneath. Without giving it a second thought, she swung her feet out to hang over the edge of the upper bed, and began removing her modern shirt and leg-wear, letting them drift to the floor for fear of the noise she'd make descending the double-cot, and leaving her clad only in the old garbs she had worn and had kept underneath the clothes given to her by Fox.

Satisfied with the cooling the shedding of insulation brought about, Krystal regained control of her respiratory functions and lay back down, pulling the sheets over her form and letting her head fall onto the soft pillow. A flood of mental activity flooded her mind as she did so though; the thoughts and concerns from before further exemplified by the dream she had just had, and refusing to allow her a moment of peaceful rest.

Virtually every viral notion and thought that emerged was connected to the scene that had so disturbed the vixen, and most ended up at the same question; _'How did he know…' _The query refused to let her mind go, gripping it in an iron hold that began to border on torture for her, forcing her to mentally revisit the sickeningly graphic nature of the rest of the situation at the Headquarters building.

She needed to escape the image; she needed to find a way to lose whatever it was that was tormenting her with the onslaught of reflections and contemplation. As she attempted to search for that mental passage out though, Krystal remembered; she was alone. The vixen was in a completely unfamiliar and frightening world, surrounded by thousands of strangers, with no way to return to the relieving solitude and isolation of her shuttle and home for the past decade; no way to go back on everything that had happened.

"Krystal…you alright?"

Fox's voice played with the same echoing quality as the image in what she now realized was a dream, but instead of fear and extreme anxiety, it produced an entirely different emotion altogether. Calm. Something compelled her to take a peak over the edge of the upper bunk down to the lower one, her sensitive eyes cutting through the darkness enough to make out the facial features of the being occupying it.

The male vulpine's sleep embraced face stared back up at her, a virtual beacon of light blazing off his visage and into Krystal's troubled mind, guiding her towards stability. The sight of him lying there, completely at peace, sparked a surprising wave of deep and relieving comfort within her; dispelling the anxiety that had attacked her mind and soothing her frayed nerves. His presence beneath her made her realize that she had been wrong; she was not alone, and, at least for the time being, she had no need to worry of being so.

Taking in the image of his slumbering visage for one last moment, she returned herself to the pillow of her own bunk, a new comprehension coming to mind as she did so. While the vixen had still yet to truly know the McCloud that had saved her life twice in the last forty-eight hours, or decide if he and his team really were secure to live with; she was quite sure of one thing.

Despite living in utter loneliness for almost half of her life, she suddenly found that she never again wished to return to it.

* * *

Alright, I'm not gonna lie; I'm a little shocked and disappointed at how long it took me to get this chapter up. But, I believe that the extra time spent on it has really taught me a few very important things, and I've used the time to revise my thoughts and ideas for this story. And, I've come to a few realizations: 

-Trimming down a chapter is just as important as beefing it up sometimes

-Some things are better left untyped

-I should never overestimate my ability to type 'x' amount of chapters in 'y' amount of time.

So, with these new understandings in mind, and with a little advice from a good friend, I've decided that, in an effort move the story along ('cuz at this rate, I'll never finish 'er before college), I'm gonna have to cut some of the chapters I already have written and shorten the remaining ones up a bit. What does this mean for the handful of people reading this? Condensed chapters and consequently (hopefully) shortened post intervals.

Right, shuttin' up now; on to the important stuff.

* * *

Review Replies: 

_Antigravity 5-1-0_:

Thanks for the kind words there AG; in my opinion, honesty is the ultimate show of respect which, as I'm sure you know by now, I have heaps of for you. On to the review…

The spelling errors were inexcusable lapses in attention from me; I was kinda pushing to get that chapter out the door (kinda like this one), and I must've missed 'em. Hopefully, there weren't too many. And in regards to the bunched words, I've noticed that this site tends to do that (omitting spaces) with a lot of text-based entries; it happens all the time with profiles and stuff. However, with that in mind, I've made sure to check over this particular chapter specifically for them.

Ah, I feel stupid; I should've caught that part about Krystal. Looking back on it, you're absolutely right; it's kinda an awkward sentence, and one that doesn't quite fit in with the overall atmosphere I've been trying to create. Thanks for pointin' that out; y muchos gracias por la revision mi hermano; muchas gracias.

_Redbay_:

I'm extremely glad you feel that way Redbay; to hear that I'm improving even in the slightest way is a huge boost in morale, and the (in my opinion) over-generous compliments are an honor to receive.

And as for the blushing deal; the way I mean it when I say that Fox or whoever blushes isn't that their fur changes color; it's the skin underneath, which shows through a little bit. I dunno; it's kinda hard to explain; I'll see if I can think of an example by the next chapter.

So thanks for the review man. And remember, the offer from my profile still stands; if you ever post a story, I'll be the first to review it and give whatever insight a lowly fic author can.

_Death_:

_hay redd i finshed your last two stroy man that took forever but was a good read i reading this one now and are looking forware to the next if you can make the last to you did you can finsh this one  
keep up the good work  
Death out_

Ahem…if I may be so bold as to offer my attempt at a translation:

"Hello Redd; I completed reading your previous two chapters, and it took an eternity to assimilate. However, it was quite a thumping read; so much so that I'm inspired to take a crack at your current publication, and am looking forward to the next entry. If you're able to create the previous two entries, I'm quite sure that you will have the ability to finish this fanfiction.

Continue the exemplary work

Death out"

Nah, I'm just screwin' with ya man; I can understand what you mean fine. Thanks a whole bunch for the review Death.

_SF Ghost_:

Hey, you're right: I CAN smell it! It smells like…Dentene Ice…huh. Minty.

As always, you amaze me with your review; if I may be so bold as to review _it_, I've got to say that you consistently have the most elegantly crafted analysis of anyone I've met. If they're any preview to the stuff we can expect in your sequel to G Wing, then I'm willing to bet it'll be a blockbuster.

My 'own style'? I don't know about that; I'm pretty sure I'm not exactly good enough to have my 'own style'. Don't get me wrong though; I'm absolutely flattered by the compliments. You have easily succeeded again in brightening up the day I received that review on. Many thanks for it SF Ghost.

* * *

Once again, I'd like to thank you, the reader, for taking the time to read my work; there're a lot of better stories on this site you could be reading, and the fact that you even considered mine is something I consider quite an honor. As always, that review button on the bottom left there is open to all; any feedback's worthy feedback in my opinion. 

Take it easy guys.

-Irish Redd

Next Chapter: _Meteos_


End file.
